Hi and hope everyone is keeping warm!
I just want to share that, as a class, we spend a lot of time outside exploring and playing in the forest, as well as, moving from one campus area to the next on multiple trails and pathways. Every moment is a learning experience and all of what we practice in the classroom transfers to the outside world and vice versa. It would be impossible to share in the blog all of our daily experiences. My hope is that by sharing what we are focusing on academically, families will be able to integrate our lesson content into their home-life and beyond to further support learning and, to highlight the authentic / practical place that math, reading, writing, science etc. have in our lives. I believe it is important to not only teach students the subject content but, also teach them how to apply the knowledge and skills learned to the world around us. This is something that happens organically as we move through our day at WBNS.
This Week in:
Phonics- Students practiced reading and writing words with long I using i, y, ie, i_e and igh. They also learned about the letter blends ong, ing, and ang. Our sight words included: night, like, if, ride, big, if, little, this, try
Math- In math this week we finished our unit on measuring weight in non-standard units. We also identified and practiced important strategies for solving word problems, as well as, completed our end of unit review. We are moving on to Singapore 1-B and the students are excited to get new books and to bring their 1-A books home.
ELA- This week we explored adjectives and had great fun generating a multitude of describing words for various nouns. How does it look, taste, smell, sound? What size is it? How does it behave or move? How does it feel emotionally and to touch? We discussed the importance of adjectives and their role in making story characters, settings, and events richer. They then took this knowledge into Writers Workshop and applied it to the characters in their new fictional stories.
Centering-This week our Words of the Day included: kindness, caring, sharing, and possibility. Our centering focus for February centers around love and giving. We are spending time thinking about and talking about what it means to be kind and caring to others, as well as, to ourselves.
Forest- Forest is muddy, slippery and always fun! We are extending our kindness talks into our forest time, asking students to be mindful of when other students demonstrate caring and sharing during free-play. Additionally, our outside adventures are the perfect time too think about adjectives and comparing and contrasting weight.