Jan
09
2012
Mrs. Bucher
Welcome back! It was so good to see all of the kiddos today. We had such a good day filled with hard workers, engaged learners, and new experiences.
One of those new experiences happened at the end of the day today. Mrs. Argus’ class and our class went to an empty classroom where we had our first Friendship Circle. Both of our classes have been talking about friendship and what it means to be a good friend and take care of our friends. Over break Mrs. Argus and I had several conversations about how we could have our two classes work together and meld their ideas of what friendship looks like. We thought maybe by doing a Friendship Circle each Monday and Friday we could focus our two classes and celebrate how friendship is established, cared for, and lasting.
So…today we met and discussed that we were going to meet on Mondays and Fridays together as one big Friendship Circle. The children were THRILLED! Then, we introduced the Friendship Loom. This loom we discussed as a group is something to show how we are caring for our friends. During Lunch and Recess when a teacher or maybe it is another child notices someone being kind to another person then they can add a piece of fabric to our loom. We will continue to add to it each day/week to show how our friends are being caring and loving to each other! Today, we celebrated a few different examples of friends caring for friends.
We look forward to seeing where this goes!
Mrs. Argus explaining the loom to the friends in class!
Working together to weave the fabric.
Celebrating our good friends!
Jan
08
2012
Mrs. Argus
Good evening families! I am hoping your break was as enjoyable and restful as mine. As we resume the school year, I have something new and exciting to share with you. I would like to start family journals this year with each of you as an additional way to communicate and support one another. This is something that is completely optional, and can be used daily, weekly, or a few times throughout the semester. You can write me questions, concerns, funny stories- anything that you want to share with me or have me discuss with your child. I will be sending these home tomorrow with your child. Write me and send it in whenever you see fit!
Also, Wednesday is our field trip to Butler’s Clowes Hall to see our Eric Carle performance. If you have volunteered to chaperone, please come to school by 11am and meet in our classroom. We will be finishing up lunch but will need to quickly make a restroom stop and then board the bus right away for the performance.
I am looking forward to seeing all of the kids’ smiling faces tomorrow morning!
Tags: field trip
Dec
19
2011
Mrs. Argus
Da'Sean and Angela make passports with Miss Schmidt.
Buenos dias! Tomorrow is our flight to Mexico (remember, the flight leaves at 6pm here at school) and in preparation, we made passports today. We talked about the signifigance of a passport and why it might be a good thing to have them when we travel. Our friends are so excited for our trip! We hope you can join us.
- Angela helps Hutton stretch out his words as he writes.
In celebration of winter, we read the classic tale, The Gingerbread Man, as a class. We then talked about how maybe we could create our own versions of The Gingerbread Man with partner writing. Miss Schmidt explained how each pair would share a book and “share the pen”. Meaning, our partners would have to figure out how they would share the responsibility of writing their gingerbread story. Would they take turns on each page? Would someone write the words and another friend draw the pictures? Would they alternate words in a sentence? Many variations of this were practiced during Writer’s Workshop. It was incredible to see the children’s problem solving abilities and capacity to work together on a task. We can’t wait to resume writing tomorrow and see where our stories take us!
Its been so exciting to see our family cookie recipes start arriving! Please turn one in if you have not already done so. Thank you!
Tags: collaboration
