It has been a very busy spring in the LE classroom and in between a field trip to the International Paper Museum and the Museum of Science, there has been a lot of learning going on. There is always a constant buzz of activity as students reach a new level of understanding or the development of a new skill. The joy and laughter is palpable and it makes the classroom such a delightful place to be.

Literacy

It is an amazing thing to observe as the pieces start falling into place for students in their literacy development. Between the small groups who meet with Ms. Susan, the ongoing book clubs, and daily read aloud, every student has made wonderful progress in their reading abilities which spills over into every area of our day. From being able to easily read the morning message on the board, to helping a peer spell a word, or creative story-writing, students become more competent and confident in their own abilities.

Math

We have just finished up our unit on multiplication, wrapping up the four fundamental math operations, including addition, subtraction, and division. Students learned how to multiply numbers from one to ten with the help of drawings, objects, equations, and other fun activities to help build a solid math foundation. We are now moving onto a unit of measuring and using non-standard objects such as popsicle sticks to understand how we can measure length. We will also investigate width, height, weight, and volume.

Paper Theme

After the amazing field trip to the International Paper Museum, and after finishing up a couple other activities, students were excited to try their hand at making our own pulp to use for paper-making. We spent a good amount of time ripping up pieces of newspaper and submerging them in water. After letting them soak for a few hours, students took turns using a drill with a special blade to see if we could get the same consistency as what we had been shown. It wasn’t the most successful attempt but it was lots of fun trying! We are working on paper-making 2.0 to see if letting the paper soak for days and then blending it up, will result in a better consistency. We will keep you posted!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Warm regards,

Lisa

100th Day of School

We celebrated our 100th day of school on Tuesday, March 5th (where has this year gone??). We incorporated 100 jumps, then 100 knee bends at Morning Meeting; we built structures using 100 blocks, attempted to make a paper chain using 100 paper links, and students suggested other ideas like letting Taffy out of her tank for 100 seconds, or having Snap Pea and Magic Mike fly around for a 100 minutes!

Literacy

We have had three consecutive book clubs running at the moment. One group is using our language program called Ally, one group read Amanda Pig, and a third has been reading Frog and Toad are Friends. Similar to the project that culminated in reading Daniel’s Duck, students who read Amanda Pig made a plane out of cardboard to fly their pigs around. This led to the construction of a zip line that tested out the flights of the planes and discussions about how much weight is needed to make sure the plane can make it down the zip line. It turns out that pigs really do fly!! The group that read Frog and Toad are Friends, are stitching bean bag frogs and will then stuff them with beans or rice. Project-based learning is a wonderful way for students to develop and build on meaningful collaboration, communication, language, and vocabulary development, foster creativity, encourage perseverance, and to have fun!

Math Groups

Students have been learning the basics of money and incorporating the skills they learned from the fraction lessons as well as number placement. Last week, they did an exercise where they needed to earn money that they could use at the class “shop” and when they had saved enough, to be able to purchase items of their choice. To do this, students rolled a dice and added pennies that were the value of the number they had rolled. When they got to ten pennies, they traded at the “bank” for a dime. When they had ten dimes, they traded for a dollar, and so on. There was definitely some slippery finance going on but a lot of fun was had and an appreciation for how much money it takes to be able to buy the items you really want!! We will be revisiting some of the basic computation skills such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division for the next couple of weeks and then we will be moving onto our unit of measurement.

Field Trip

We are looking forward to our field trip to the International Paper Museum on Friday, March 22nd. Thanks to our Room Parents for organizing all the logistics. Have a wonderful rest of the weekend.

Jen and Lisa

Chinese New Year

We have had a very busy few weeks in LE! To celebrate the Chinese New Year, we had Kai, Rebecca, Chloe, and Paige’s mothers all come in and share their stories and traditions for celebrating in their families. This year is the Year of the Dragon. They brought some traditional craft projects for the students including a dragon face mask, a dragon puppet, traditional Chinese characters on red squares, special cookies, and also red envelopes with a token gift. In the spirit of paper, we also tried our hand at paper-cutting. Using Exacto knives, red paper and cutting mats, students had to carefully cut around an outline of a red lantern. It took a lot of patience and precise cutting which was not easy. We will practice this art another time as well.

Recent Book Clubs

We have had three concurrent book clubs going and have had some fun projects that most students participated in. Ms. Jen’s second group of Daniel’s Duck are finishing up their wooden ducks. There has been a lot of laughter and careful use of many tools in order to procure the just right duck! Another group made paper-bag puppies after reading a book about a dog called “Sam” who helped save a tug in the fog. And, Ms. Lisa’s book group finally made Creme Brulee! This was the favorite dessert of the dragon named “Grahame,” like the cracker and with and “e” from the book “Kenny and the Dragon!”

We hope that you all have a wonderful, safe, somewhat restful, and healthy February break! We will look forward to hearing about all the adventures you and your families have when we get back.

Warm regards,

Ms. Jen and Ms. Lisa

Writing

Each weekday morning, students complete a set task such as Metal Insets, Handwriting, Word Sorts, Vocabulary Sorts, or Journal writing. The goal behind these is to help students strengthen their hand, wrist, and forearm muscles as well as their core, in order to be able to complete more sophisticated handwriting. This week, two students decided to put together homework for Ms. Jen! This took on a life of its own with many of the rest of the class joining in and adding to the homework pile. Ms Jen was given written instructions to compose a one thousand and a two thousand word essay, as well as draw three self-portraits, complete an art project, paint a scenery, and solve some math problems. Ms. Lisa “can have a break and needs to check Ms. Jen’s homework!” They are VERY creative with their morning work!

Reading

We are currently finishing up three book clubs and we will be starting new ones next week. Many of the students want to participate in the Daniel’s Duck book club, as the project involves wood carving just like the character in the story. The three groups will be… Flyleaf Press Series of Sight-Word heavy readers, Daniel’s Duck, and a Magic Tree House group working on fluency. We have explained that the only “clubs” that we have in the Lower Elementary class are Book Clubs. This fills the student’s need for belonging, improving literacy, and creating interesting projects!!

Math

We started our Fraction Unit after we came back from break, including the introduction to fraction “families”. These describe the Unit of one divided into equal parts… the family of 2 or 1/2, 3 or 1/3 and so on up until tenths. Each student completed Fraction Family Book in their own pace, we placed partners into groups working through classroom materials at their level of understanding. In this way, we are differentiating instruction and gaining practice.

Theme

In the spirit of our theme, students used a template, scissors, and a hot glue gun to make “mac and cheese” houses, using the leftover mac and cheese boxes that families kindly sent in. It took some good fine-motor skills to cut the template out of the boxes, as well as some engineering skills to make sure that the folds were in the right place when using the hot glue gun to put them together. Once completed, students then painted their house, added windows and doors, and roof tiles in their fabric pattern. As often happens in our classroom, students come up with ideas and the emerging curriculum lead us on an adventure we might not have predicted! We read “Me On the Map” and discussed the differences between a city, a town, and a village and begin some town planning. Using paper tape, students then chose a location for their house, then used a pencil to draw sidewalks and roads around their property. Next, we will be connecting roads, creating parks, and other necessary infrastructure for our town using only paper or card stock, of course.

Chinese New Year

The Lunar New Year is coinciding perfectly with our Paper Unit as we are beginning to introduce paper-making techniques invented in China! Our dedicated class parents have sent in many Lunar New Year activities such as dragon-making kits, a gorgeous book on Chinese Paper Cutting and a slew of decorations!! We can’t wait to celebrate. Ms. Jen will be bringing in pictures and artifacts from a school that she was involved with in Taiwan, and parents are welcome to join us at the beginning of Theme on either Friday, February 2nd or February 9th at 1:30pm, to discuss their experiences in China.

Cheers,

Jen & Lisa

Fresh Cut Paper Field Trip

We had a fantastic field trip to Freshcut Paper in Concord. Julia and her team provided us all with an amazing tour of their work space, and we got to meet the founder, Peter. He talked with us about how he came up with the idea for the company, how the environment is negatively impacted by sending fresh cut flowers, and that Freshcut Paper also plant a tree for every card they print! They have planted over 3,000,000 trees! Students got to see where the designers come up with their ideas, the printing of the card stock they use to create the product, watch it being worked on by the laser printer, checked out some of the work that is done on the computer with graphics, and then, the best part, was actually manipulating some of the beautiful products. We also got to see some of their new products that haven’t been released yet. We were all blown away by the fact that all of these different items were all made of paper! As a final treat, students got to see the photography studio where lots of marketing work is done, visit the shop, and then choose one of the beautiful products to take home! It was an all around, really cool time.

Book Clubs

We have several book clubs running concurrently and it’s been really amazing to watch the growth in the literacy development in our classroom. There are multiple levels of reading and as many different genres of books being read. Each group reads out loud to practice fluency and reading with expression, as well as doing projects that tie into the story such as making a boat, building a wagon, creating a dragon, making soup, or doing a word search with new vocabulary.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Lisa and Jen

Math

We are currently playing a game called “Race to 1,000” in which students roll dice for ones, trade for a ten stick, and when ten ten sticks are obtained, trade for a hundred block, until reaching one thousand. This will be in preparation for understanding dynamic addition and subtraction where units need to be traded or borrowed.

Vocabulary Challenges

Students are challenging themselves everyday and nowhere is it more evident than when they are doing the Vocabulary sort on a Thursday. The collaboration and conversations that are witnessed and heard between peers working on some of the largest sorts is so delightful.

As part of our exploration of our theme of “Paper,” students are working on building their own paper-making press in technology. They have shown good skills and careful use of tools such as a saw, sandpaper, hammer, nails, and glue.

We are excited for our field trip to Freshcut Paper in Concord tomorrow. Students have been making pop-up cards with Ms. Camilla, so it will be really fun to see how they are made in their factory. Have a terrific weekend.

Jen and Lisa

Fire Drill

This week, we had a fire drill. Students moved very quickly, efficiently, and safely out to the meeting spot in the parking lot. As we were getting ready to head back into the classroom, we stopped to check out the fire engine and take a quick picture.

Spirit Day

There was a lot of excitement and some wonderful, creative costumes on our Spirit Day. In a brief parade through the Commons, students from across Acera walked around to show their spirit and appreciate each other’s choices.

Vocabulary Sorts and Partner Reading

The gentle hum of students getting down to business and engaging with vocabulary sorts and partner reading is always wonderful to see and hear. Students are slowly and steadily choosing more difficult vocabulary sorts and challenging themselves and each other when they choose to write down the new words they are learning. Each week on a Wednesday, we pair students for partner reading at Rest and Read. It’s a lovely way for current readers and emerging readers to listen to each other as they develop the skills of reading out loud and with expression.

Theme

This week for our theme, we watched a video about the invention of paper and a brief history of paper making. We also checked out the piece of papyrus that we had worked on making and problem-solving about why it may have dried in such a peculiar way. You can ask your student what happened! We read a book called “Christina Katerina and the Box” about a young girl who gets a big box to play with. She creates a castle but when it rains, the box falls to bits. We made our own boxes with card stock and discussed ways that we might be able to waterproof them so that they wouldn’t fall apart. There were some very creative ideas!

Happy Weekend!

Jen & Lisa

Observational Drawings

For the science portion of our exploration of paper, students observed and then drew Peony. They made very careful drawings using both pencils and colored pencils, capturing the fine details of the dwarf papyrus plant. There were scientific discussions about the different parts of the plant, the environment in which the larger variety grows, and how we can take care of Peony.

The Finished Results

Below are the finished observational drawings which can also be seen on the bulletin board outside our classroom. We think that students captured the different parts of the plant including the stems, blooms, and the pot which it is going to be transplanted into, really well.

Making Papyrus Paper

This week, we also started making our own papyrus paper. We took thin strips of papyrus, soaked them in water for several hours, then placed them into plastic bins. Using a brayer, students then had to use their muscles and roll and press the water out of the strips. When they were finished getting as much water out as they could, the strips of papyrus were placed back into the water. We will repeat this step four more times before we are ready to complete the paper making process.

A quick update, Acera will be celebrating Spirit Day on Tuesday, October 31st and NOT October 30th as previously noted. Please remember not to send any candy into school. Happy Weekend!

Jen and Lisa

Theme

Last week, we finished up visiting the last three core classrooms to read our story called “Emily’s Idea” and to ask students if they would also help us by participating in making paper doll chains to add to our ever-increasing paper doll chain, that has started up around the Commons. Next time you are in the building, take a look and see the wonderful sense of community that is being displayed. We love it!

Art

Ms. Camila has also been incorporating paper into her weekly art exploration with our students.

Math

We have been doing explorations on place value, rolling, writing, making, and building large numbers. We have begun to add three and four digit numbers, with and without regrouping.

Spirit Day: October 31st!!