Classroom Newsletter February 27-March 12
Love
Love looks like a baby horse is love on the way.
Love sounds like beautiful wind.
Love tastes like yummy sweets.
Love smells like sweets.
Love feels like tree swallows are circling. Krista Reiswig
Dear Tree Swallow Families,Didn't February just begin? Before we know it, Spring, then Summer will be here. The days are already a little brighter, and we have opened the classroom window several times this week!
Thanks to our room parents, Carol and Rebecca, and to our fantastic Instructional Assistant, Emily, our Friendship Feast was a "heart-y" success! With just moments Carol and Emily transformed the classroom into a festive banquet hall. It was a really special way to spend time celebrating each other.
Our "Heart Affirmations" continue through the end of the month. This is and will be one of my favorite activities of this entire school year. It is such a powerful experience for the "celebrated" child, their peers and for me as well. Ask your Swallow about this event....no doubt you will know when it was your child's day because they will be beaming and perhaps look a few inches taller.
The other day I walked outside my apartment and off in the distance I hear, "pumpkin-eater, pumpkin-eater!". Lily, my 5yr-old, turned to me, "What was that?"
"Red-winged blackbird," I said almost absentmindedly. And then it struck me that I knew the answer. Just this Summer I had been talking with our Principle, Vanessa (also a near neighbor) and this brown, red-breasted bird landed on the grass in front of us. Knowing that Vanessa is an enthusiastic ornithologist, I asked her to identify this bird. She raised an eyebrow and empathetically said, "robin". I know, I know....we can laugh about it now though. My point: I am always learning, right along side and from (and sometimes well after) the kids. The local birds that we came to know through our study so far have become like long-time friends. "Oh, yea...there were dark-eyed juncos all over my yard" the kids say, with authority. It is interesting, and weird but remains to be true: if you start to look at something, really look at it, you will "begin" to notice that something is everywhere. I, like many of our Swallows, now "see" the birds.
Our Backyard Bird Count was a great success. One group caught sight of a couple of Kestrels "bickering". The Swallow children were so professional. They took this task as the utmost serious and when the count was completed assisted Gretchen in entering the numbers in the national database.
Great birds continued to be observed last week as we visited Fernhill Wetlands and Clean Water Services to pick up the plants that will be part of the restoration plan for Ash Street Field that begins this Thursday. Besides red-winged blackbirds, killdeer, geese, and black-capped chickadees, we saw a spectacular great blue hereon and caught a glimpse of a bald eagle in a distant tree.
During this trip, I was reminded of one of the many wonderfully powerful characteristics of this school: community teachers. Eric Anderson, one of our Swallow parents, called the kids over to a seemingly rotting tree. He displayed the kind of genuine enthusiasm of any "teacher" prepared to share something good. Eric held the Swallows a captive (and participatory) audience as he described and showed the kids how this tree was in fact trying to save itself by re-growth inside the "dead" outer layer. Moments later Eric came across a plant he called "the devils club". Once again, the Swallows hung upon every word describing the progression of this "alien" looking plant.
In our short time together we have had a veterinarian, nurse, author and GPS tracker, and that's just our parents. The community has offered an oral historian, zoo keeper, humane society rep, dentist, and many, many other teachers. From this we come to know that there are teachers and learners everywhere...throughout life, in school and out. This idea is what we strive for. Thank you every day.
Math:
Our tile mystery problem solving was preempted by an authentic Swallow problem. One of our class members decide to tally the coins in her piggy bank. She had 177 pennies, 44 nickels, 52 dimes, 79 quarters and 25 dollar bills. After some time trying to calculate how much money she had, she decided to present it to the Tree Swallows to solve.
We used base-ten manipulatives and money pieces, along with finger counting and our mental math to figure out how much money each collection of coins represented. This involved an understanding of the value of each coin, counting by 1, 5, 10, various ways of representing a given value, regrouping and place-value. In some way, this problem was a challenge for all. For some, this problem was an authentic introduction in to money value. For others, it was exploration of representing values to the right of the decimal. However, after some small-group work, the Swallows came up with a solution. I think Iris is on to a new dilemma.!
Last week, the Swallows, in pairs, created a tile mystery problem for their peers. The pair had to first agree what tile collection would go in the bag then work together to write attribute clues. This week we have begun to solve those student-created riddles. I think one of the most successful parts of this activity is the dialogue between the solvers, and upon discovering that there is not enough information to solve, the appeal to the writers to add more clues without "giving the answer away".
What's next? Put on your thinking cap, family! Your Swallow will be creating a tile mystery problem for you to solve!
Also ahead: Ways of making and representing 100. The creation of a personal timeline has us exploring values on a number line.
Literacy:
Check out the walls outside our classroom! The Swallows put their heart into composing "sense poems" about a warm feeling or well-loved object. Move over Browning and Seuss!
A class collaborative wall-book, with cut-paper illustration shows key understandings about our bird inquiry. BUT... REALLY, the book illustrates just how creative these kids are!
Handwriting next week will turn our attention to the editing process. This week the Swallows will work to ready a draft that they intend to publish.
We have formally introduced a Readers' Workshop. This is a time to read and respond to books. Although it now just names something we have been already doing, the Swallows have embraced this time as something new, exciting and to be cherished. There is a renewed "coolness" to reading. Literature Circles will be forming (we have one group in the midst of Ribsy) for many Swallows. Others will continue meeting one-on one.
Monday, February 3rd, we will spend the day celebrating reading. The Read-In will invite Swallows to explore a variety of modes of reading. We will have guest read-alouds, independent reading, readers' theater, buddy reading and we'll even reconnect with our "Peace Buddies" (one student from John's class and one from Charlies) to share favorite books, lunch and a break at Central School. On this day your child is invited to wear PJs to school, bring a pillow and a favorite book from home.
Odds and Ends
Our Out and About this Thursday will be a collaborative planting at Ash Street with our Kestral buddies.
If you have any comments or questions, please free to contact me at 503-880-5478 or by email, r.weil@fgcschool.
Cheers,
Rachel Weil
