Aalva Class 2015-2016: Welcome, Fall

Hello family and friends!

It's been a great week back at school! I know everyone was ready to get back into a normal routine after our time away because of the flood. I'm so thankful that all of you are safe and sound. It was nice to come in Monday and see everyone's faces. The kids have done great this week. We have had a few bring up the flood and some of the damage it has caused. Instead of focusing on the negative, we took time to talk about all the kind people in our community who have helped those in need. It allowed us time to go back and reflect on our kindness quilt from a couple of weeks ago. It was so encouraging to hear the kids talk about ways they can be kind and helpful when others need our help. It has been a wonderful (and very positive) week of transition back to school!

There has been a lot of talk in our classroom about pumpkins lately. Many have seen pumpkins around town or have bought them for their home. Others have mentioned that they've made pumpkin bread at home and seen them at stores. Since this has been a topic of recent interest, we thought we'd run with the idea. It's a perfect time to explore fall as we've just started the season.

Since the kids have been to interested in pumpkins, we brought in several different types for them to study. These pumpkins have a new home in our science center. Along with the pumpkins, we've laid out our magnifying glasses, measuring tape, and clipboards with pencils and crayons. We have encouraged the kids to explore the pumpkins using any of the materials in our classroom. There has been a lot of measuring! We've spent a good deal of time talking about the physical characteristics of each pumpkin. We've studied the lines of the pumpkins, as well as the texture and different purposes. The kids were thrilled to find out that pumpkins and gourds come in a variety of colors...not all of them are orange. The kids have been using the clipboards to draw pictures of the pumpkins and also pictures of how they explored the pumpkin that day. As they draw, we've been writing their words on their pictures. The kids have been hanging these up in the hallway outside our door. We thought this would be a great way for you to see what the kids are doing through their own artwork and words. Make sure you check the wall out often as we've been adding artwork daily.

Since the kids were doing a lot of measuring, we thought we'd be scientist and make some predictions about our pumpkins. We talked about what we thought might happen to them after weeks in our room, guesses as to whether they will change shapes, and what they look like inside. We also make some predictions on how round and tall we thought our biggest pumpkin was. The kids took string and cut it the length they thought it would take to wrap all the way around the pumpkin. After we made all of our predictions, we wrapped a string around the pumpkin to find the actual length. We learned that all of us were close in making our predictions! We also made some predictions about the height of our pumpkin using unifix cubes. As with the string, we measured the actual height of our pumpkin after charting our predictions. We were so impressed to find that all of us guessed within 4 numbers of the actual height! They were extremely proud of themselves for that, as they should be. These predictions and findings were charted as we worked and are hanging up in the hallway. Make sure you check it out! I'm sure they'd love to tell you all about it :)

Of course we couldn't explore fall appropriately without a nature walk! We spent one morning walking around our school listening and looking at the first signs of fall. We noticed that the temperature has gotten cooler. We also noticed that because of that we were all dressed in long pants or jackets to keep warm. We noticed that the wind was blowing and leaves were falling. As we walked and talked, we also picked up fall findings to bring into the classroom. We found some beautiful leaves that were red, orange, and yellow. We also found tons of acorns and pinecones. We all agreed that these were signs of fall and would be great additions to our science area along with our pumpkins. We'll be doing more activities with these items next week. We'll also be adding them in our art center. Art and nature also seem to go together perfectly and provide the kids with another way to use their imagination. We'll hang some of our "fall findings" artwork in our classroom as the kids make them. Everyone seems excited about this exploration project and we can't wait to see where it takes us next!

I hope everyone has a restful weekend!

Love,
Ms. Rachael

Here are a few of the many standards we covered this week...

Approaches to Learning:

Show creativity and imagination using materials in representational play.
Demonstrate eagerness and interest as a learner by questions and adding ideas.
Show increasing ability to maintain interest in self-selected activities and play despite distractions and interruptions.
Understand that a task can be accomplished through several steps.

Social & Emotional:

Demonstrate self direction by making choices among peers activities and materials.
Respond respectfully to positive and negative feedback from adults most of the time.
Develop strategies to express strong emotion with adult help.

Language & Literacy:

Classify objects and information by observable attributes into predetermined categories.
Ask "how" and "why" questions about things in books and their environment.
Begin to use classroom resources such as books, charts, photographs and graphs to gain information about topics of interest.
Contribute to small group or whole class dictation activities.
Understand relationship between print and pictures on page.

Mathematics: