Hello again parents of 1JM!
We hope you had a fun – but more importantly – informative time at Back to School Night! Your kids were so thrilled to see your notes in their cubbies first thing in the morning. Jennifer and Matt were mobbed to help read them as soon as the door opened.
“This part is definitely from my dad!” said Esme halfway through reading hers.
“I knew my parents would draw my dog!” said Eva.
Over the past two weeks we’ve settled into our routine, and established the beginning of our first Science unit about trees. We discussed how to be a good friend to trees, and why trees are such valuable friends to us.
“Trees breath out oxygen, and we breath it in!” said Teddy.
While talking about how Matt recycles at home, the students asked “do you live with someone?” Jesse said: “ he lives with husband… OR his wife!” Jennifer and Matt couldn’t help but laugh.
We revisited the book, It’s Back to School We Go — First Day Stories From Around the World, and discussed what we learned about a day in the life Thomas, a seven-year-old boy from the Amazon in Peru. The students learned that children from this region learn to hunt, fish and farm at a very young age, and that many of them have their own canoes. The students then wrote and drew about the information about Thomas that they found the most interesting.
As a follow-up to our science lesson on trees, Kelly used her read aloud session to talk to the students about how we formulate questions, and asked, “What do you want to know about trees?” Before this, she asked the children to provide words they could use to start a question and charted their responses. Then, she had the class ask everything they wanted to know about trees. Eighteen children generated 27 questions! Kelly wrapped up the session by reading Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree.
Kelly Reads The Giving Tree to 1JM
“Who planted the first ever tree? They’ve been around since before dinosaurs!” Jesse wanted to know. The beauty of this question model is the students’ queries often go so much further than we anticipate teaching, and we adjust our future lessons accordingly to answer them. One question from Eva, “Why do leaves change color?”, led to a read-aloud of a book of that same title. And Teddy wanted to know, “Why is bark called bark?!?”
On Day 7, Kelly visited room 20 again, this time to launch our October Author of the Month unit on Eric Carle. In this lesson, Kelly discussed with the children the content of many of Carle’s books and use of nature to tell stories and share important lessons. Part of the discussion focused on the the illustrations in Carle’s works and his preference for collage. She then read Little Cloud to the group, focusing on the book’s artwork and its connection to the story. After, the children worked on their own Eric Carle-inspired collages, using elements found in the writer’s work. Other books we have read as part of this unit include Do You Want to Be My Friend? and The Greedy Python.
Paula, the lower school librarian, has been visiting our room to start up our “Artist of the Month” unit. October’s artist is Frida Kahlo – Ava and Jana were very excited to talk about Kahlo’s work, and Ava gave us a brief biography of her life during our very first lesson.
Paula introduces 1JM to Frida Kahlo
Paula introduced looking at artwork with our eyes, our hearts, and our brains.
In Math with Monica, we constructed “houses” using cubes. The kids were instructed to make houses for seven people, with two rooms on the bottom floor, and make as many variations on this as they could find. We’ve also begun to dip our toes in the geometry unit, and on Wednesday we read a book called “The Greedy Triangle” with the kids, about a triangle who is never satisfied and continues to shift shapes. Then, the class studied the different shapes and chose their favorite. This data was tallied and included in a graph that charted “Room 20’s Favorite Shapes.” We also continued calendar math with the students this week, and they have brought home their October calendars to share with you!
Ava and Akhil working together during our early geometry unit.
A new routine we’re introducing is a Friday journal session centered around recapping what we did that week. We start with a discussion where we touch on everything we’ve covered over the week, and then the students write about their favorite activity or lesson from the week. This helps both the students (and teachers) take stock of our progress. We’re also hoping this will help give those students who don’t talk much about school at home something they can say at dinner! We’ve also added a daily dismissal routine where every afternoon, we go back through the schedule and talk about what we did in each class.
Friday Journals!
Cooper Browning, who taught First Grade the last three years with Matt Schlee, is back this Fall as a reading Consultant. She and Salvi Muzio have been teaching and sitting in on our half groups and conducting lessons around the strategies that good readers use. The reinforcement of vowels, both long and short, has been a focus this week. We are also continuing to talk about reading habits – feel free to talk to your kids at home about your own readings habits. Hopefully your kids showed you their bookmarks Friday morning!
Salvi introduced the concept of a “picture walk” to our half groups. A picture walk is like a warm up before reading a book. The instructor covers the words of the book and asks the students to try and put together the story based on the pictures alone. Using our “eagle eye” during the picture walk is an important strategy for burgeoning readers – especially when navigating tricky words and challenging material.
Salvi takes one half group on a picture walk!
We loved seeing the parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, and siblings at parent visiting and during the potluck. The kids are so thrilled whenever their families can come into the classroom, and we hope it makes room 20 feel like more of a home for them.
Learning to play Racing Dice and perusing a Reading folder
We also wanted to extend a huge thank you to the Haymes family for hosting the potluck – Matt and his roommates are particularly grateful for the gourmet leftovers we’ve been eating the last few nights. It was great to meet the families — it gives us more context for getting to know our students!
Have a wonderful three-day weekend!
Best,
Your friends in Room 20
Looking ahead:
Monday, October 9th — No School
Tuesday, October 10th — All-School Photo
Wednesday, October 18th — Class Field Trip to the Tenafly Nature Center
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