Nov
11
2011
Mrs. Argus
In addition to our Block A friends from Butler who come every Wednesday, we have another Butler class who visits us on a regular basis. They are part of an arts integration class through the college of education and are learning how to integrate the arts into our project work and regular curriculum. Every week, a small group of these students pull a group of our classmates and work with them on something related to flight. Last week, some of our friends learned an awesome song about a Bi-Plane. Today, our friends experimented with creating airplane wings and talking about the concept of lift when the wing was held in front of a fan- incredible!
Tags: capable, curious, design, paper airplane, project, think
Nov
11
2011
Miss Estridge
Today we finally got to have our ice cream party, and the kids loved it! My mom came and brought the ice cream and toppings, who in case you ever hear about Mrs. Estridge, she comes in about once a week. The kids had delicious treats and seemed excited for our next class reward.
In addition to the icecream excitement, we have also been starting to work on building a tree/house for our praying mantis, Cinderella Lightning McQueen. On Wednesday, in the studio, students worked on their first drafts of drawings of what the tree should look like. On Thursday, we did second on third drafts. We are now working on four group drafts and are excited to come up with a final whole class draft soon.
After drawing the drafts, students did a gallery walk of their work.
Nov
10
2011
Mrs. Argus
David has the gift of being a great artist.
Yesterday when our Butler Block A friends were here, we did a special activity about gifts. Each child was in a small group with an adult and had a discussion on having personal gifts and how each child contributes in a positive way to our classroom. The groups first talked about how these are not tangible gifts, but gifts inside us. Carriea said, “Like gifts from your heart!” The groups then went around the small circle and each child said positive traits about one another that could be gifts. Cameron’s gift is the gift of intelligence. He said, “I am smart!” Aidan has the gift of being good at sight words. Christian’s gift is drawing monster trucks and cars.
Michael and Messi have a conversation about one another's gifts.
- One of our Butler friends facilitates discussion on gifts.
After each child identified a personal gift, they were given a task: draw a picture of your gift. The children spent time adding details and words to their picture to show others what their personal gift is. Next, we will add color with watercolor pencils and hopefully have these beautiful works displayed. Ask your child what their gift is!
Tags: art, relationships
Nov
09
2011
Mrs. Clark
Mr. Boyle was very helpful as he explained about recycled carpet!
We had a guest speaker in our classroom today. Mr. Boyle came in from InterfaceFLOR to talk to us about recycled carpet. His company recycles old carpet and makes it into new carpet! During his time with us he showed a video of how the new carpet was made. The kids really loved to see the big spools of thread! Someone said, “Is that as tall as me?!” This was a very informative experience. The kids were able to see another item that can be recycled in our world and how it is done. In addition, we found out that our own carpet in our classroom is recycled carpet! Everyone was very excited about this!
After the video we had a lot of questions!
Nov
09
2011
Mrs. Bucher
Today, we had such a good day filled with some serious hard work in preparing for our puppet shows as well as creating wonderful books, solving problems during math workshop, and reading with some great enthusiasm. Earlier this week we began talking about verbs with the ending -ing. Today we began talking about words with the -ed ending. Since we have begun talking about the endings in words, the children have been spotting them all around us! It is amazing to see their commitment and enthusiasm for learning!
We have a couple of three sheeters almost finished, some sets to include in some of the shows, and let me tell you about these puppets-today, with the support of our Butler students, the children worked so hard to continue to add to their puppets. Each time we worked on them, they were so engaged in preparing their puppets and adding more materials to make it more like they want it to look. At the end of the day we decided to perform our shows for each other. I had to read the stories so fast so each group could use their puppets and perform. Even though it was a quick run though, the children really were excited about performing for each other.
I was so proud of them!
