Week of September 20

 It's hard to believe we have passed the one-month mark and are heading into fall. Students have been working hard in writing and reading this month. We have been pulling apart various texts to gather the gist of each story, determine the moral/message of the story, and how this connects to our unit's focus: education, learning, and books are important to people around the world. In math, we have been building our understanding of multiple-digit addition and will be moving into multiple-digit subtraction soon. Students are using strategies such as Getting to a Friendly Number, Pulling Apart by Place Value, and Starting With What You Know. The weather has been warmer than anticipated and the creatures have been buzzing around us, preparing for the change of seasons. We have made significant changes to our schedule in hopes of spending more time outside than has been possible these past few weeks. Hopefully, this will afford us more time outdoors. 

Here are some pictures from the week:

Pulling apart Nasreen's Secret School within our EL Module block

Finding new creatures (red eft) in our outdoor classroom

And magical rocks of course!

Weed whacking the field space! Inspired by Mr. Osborne who volunteered his time last week to help create this space for us!

Beautify-ing nature and creating a Nature Club

Week of September 6 and September 13, 2021

 The past two weeks have flown by! Students have started getting into a strong routine for reading, writing, and math. We have worked on establishing group norms during our ALL Block and EL Module instructional time. Additionally, we have adapted our math activities to spend more time in the forest in the afternoons. Lately, we have not been able to get outside as much as we would have liked, but as we continue to build a stronger routine, I know we will find more time to spend outside. 

We ended our week this week with a movie and PJ day to celebrate all the hard work students have been displaying throughout the first month of school. When cashing in their CSR tokens, the jar was overflowing! It was a great sight to see. 

Here are some fun pictures from the past two weeks:

Investigating new text features within our new EL curriculum

These three kiddos cashed in their CSR tokens (75 each) for an individual ice cream party! Way to go!

Sometimes all you want to do is lie back and listen to the new audiobook you checked out from the library.

Our first catch (and release) of the season

Moving logs around to set up a better fire circle

Week of August 30th

 Hi everyone, 

        Our second week was much cooler in temperatures and afforded us time in the outdoor classroom every day. We are so grateful the rain held off until the evenings. Students were introduced to their hammocks this week and we discussed the important CSR behavior needed in order to use these hammocks as successful learning spaces. 

        This week we also spent a lot of time completing our Second Step social skills curriculum. Students are learning about aggressive, passive, and assertive tones as well as how to show empathy and compassion toward others. 

        This week we completed a new writing project based on the book, The Best Part of Me by Wendy Ewald. Students identified the most important body part on themselves and described why. Each student will be taking home a book of our work together. I will also be sending out an audio version of this work in the next few days. 

        Lastly, students participated in ALL block. This year the Hartford School District has adopted a new language arts curriculum to address reading and writing. Within this curriculum is a section titled ALL block. During this time, students will need to rotate through stations, completing work independently, in small groups, and in partners. This week we focused on learning those routines and expectations through poetry, hammock play, and small group second step lessons with Mrs. Raney. 

Here are some pictures from our week:

Week of August 24th

 Here are some fun pictures from the first week of school!