We completed our first FULL week of the 2016-2017 school year! We had such a busy, exciting week full of learning, I'd be surprised if they weren't awfully tired Friday evening!
Thank you to all of those who were able to make it to our Curriculum Night. It was SO nice to see so many of you! We're going to have such a great year working together!
Highlights from our week:
*Science: Our science curriculum is based on experimental philosophy and gives each child a chance to explore, observe, wonder, predict, investigate and record findings. On Thursday, we began our unit on magnets! After posing the question, "What is magnetic in our classroom?" the scientists worked together to figure how they could test and discover. They received their official science notebooks and began recording their data. As a class, we decided that each notebook entry should include the date, the question, as well as an organized format for recording. One Owl volunteered the idea of creating a "T" chart, so each of us tried recording our findings in that way. I am SO impressed with the neat, detailed information they collected! We're going to have a great year of discovery :)
Since we'll be working hard as scientists all year, we completed some activities to help understand just what are scientists. What do they do? What tools do they use? How are YOU like a scientist? They're thinking like scientists already!!
*Reading Buddies: On Friday afternoon, we had our first day of Reading Buddies with Mrs. Loh's fifth grade class!! Both she and I were SO impressed by how quickly each pair settled in together. Ask your child who their reading buddy is, what they read together, and one thing they learned about their new friend! We will continue to meet regularly with our buddies, typically every Friday afternoon, for the remainder of the school year.
*SMS celebrates Dot Day: On Friday, we had a great day celebrating International Dot Day! This special day reminds us to "make our mark" on the world and see where it takes us. Our day began with a wonderful whole-school morning meeting. Our new Curriculum Coordinator, Mrs. Bates, led our meeting and showed us a slideshow filled with facts about dots (did you know the dots on a domino are called pips?). She then led us into a song and dance to a beautiful song co-wrote by the Author of The Dot and musician Emily Arrow.
Later in the day, we joined our neighbors, the 2R Giraffes and the 2A kangaroos, for some collaborative fun. After creating their own colorful circle, students then carefully cut it into quarters. They then had to trade pieces with one student from each class to create a new dot.
Our final "dot" activity was a fan favorite by far! Using special coloring sheets, students colored and created a dot, which was then brought to life using a special app! The Quiver app is free in the iTunes App store (it's a little slow and does require some patience!) and coloring sheets compatible with the app are available for download at http://quivervision.com/. This magical app brings their creations "to life!" As you can imagine, this was a HUGE hit!
As we closed our day, we thought back to how are day started. Mrs. Bates challenged us with the book's takeaway message: whenever something is hard, or you think you can't do it, begin by "making your mark" and trying! It might end up being the mark you make on the world! Thanks for celebrating Dot Day!! :)
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Important Dates (always available at the top of the blog page for convenience) :
Monday, Sept. 26th: Johnny Appleseed Day (more information to come!)
Wednesday, Sept. 28th: Early Release (12:50 dismissal)
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