Turkeys, Queek and Catapults!

Where did November go?  It seems to have flown by!  If it weren't for the sun setting at 4:24 (that's right, 4:24!!!!), I would hardly believe that it's December already!  Inspired by the Thanksgiving holiday, we spent time reflecting on our lives and the many things we are thankful for!  We have so many things to be thankful for and it was nice to stop and take some time to recognize this!  

Thankful Turkeys!  See some of the things we are thankful for!

Fall Trees!

Numbers galore!  We are just about finished with our "number sense" unit in Math.  We have most recently been focusing on number writing (which way does that 3 face?), recognizing numbers and ordering numbers.  "OOPS!" has been a favorite game for many!  To play you start with a stack of number cards...maybe 1 to 10 or 1 to 20 or perhaps 1 to 100, counting by 10's or 5's!  Here come's the fun part...you accidentally drop all of your cards, mixing up the order...OOPS!  Now, it's time to get those cards back in order!  Fun, fun!  I was quite impressed to see that much of the math we've been working on was able to be easily transferred to paper...with a bit of enthusiasm and hard work, our first set of math worksheets were a success!  Yay!

OOPS!

Race to 100, using base 10 blocks!

Carefully working on her number book!

We are busy authors during Writing Workshop...this has truly become a favorite part of the week for some...I have even had requests from some to write instead of playing games...sure!  Some of us focus on getting letters written on our page, others focus on stretching out words and writing as many sounds as they can, while others focus on creating stories that have a beginning, middle and end.  It has been rewarding for students to feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing a book and reading it to our class!  We steadily move forward in Phonics Centers, a time of games, worksheets, picture sorts, word ladders, word wallets, alphabet puzzles, handwriting...To keep things interesting, centers vary from week to week, although the focus of each of the 3 stations remains consistent: practicing handwriting, learning/practicing a new phonics concept, and reviewing  past phonics concepts.  Currently some focus on learning beginning consonants, others are just beginning to learn the sh and ch digraphs, while the last group is focusing on word families for each of the baby (short) vowels (_et, _eg, _en).   

You may have noticed (or not noticed, as the case may be!) a lack of theme work in your child's Thursday pack!  I have been saving all of the work, which will soon be placed in a "lap book" and will be ready to share at the upcoming portfolio share!  Our time in the MIddle Ages continues to be an interesting and fruitful learning experience!  Recent explorations have provided insight into the types of games kids played way back then (Surprisingly, these games still have quite a bit of appeal today!  I think marbles may actually make a come back!)...see if your child can describe some of the games to you!

Playing Queek is so much fun!

Ready for a big game of CHECKERS!

Aside from games, we've learned about the medicinal herbs of the time (I have had many requests for mint tea to soothe aching bellies in the past couple of weeks!), heraldry, chivalry codes (we even wrote our own chivalry codes!), catapults, and tried our hand at drawing castles!  We let our creative juices flow as we created stories in small groups that took place in the Middle Ages.  Each group chose 3 words that had to somehow be incorporated into their story!  What could you create with the words unicorn, drawbridge and crown or princess, falcon and catapult?  Jen's class took on the project of learning to make ink from oak galls, as they did in the Middle Ages.  Friends from this class taught us about the process and shared some of their ink with us so that we could write our names!  Writing in the Middle Ages sure involved a lot of work!   Check out Jen's post Oak Galls and Catapults, oh my! to read about their experiment! 

Castles and Shields...each of the symbols on the shields represents a specific trait...Ask your child to explain!

We had so much fun learning to make catapults from our friends in Jen's class!

                                     

As I take time to reflect on the things that I am thankful for in my life, it is clear to me that one of the things I am most thankful for is this community.  I LOVE getting to know all of you, and I especially love sharing my days with your wonderful children.  I am so lucky to have the opportunity to learn and grow and be creative with such amazing people!