Week 10: Halloween Week!

Blog week 10: Halloween Week!

Just a reminder that Parent-Teacher conferences are coming up the week of Nov 6^th.  There will be a sign up sheet in the coatroom with 20 minute time slots after school and on Saturday, Nov 11^th.  If you need a different time please contact me.

To summarize this week, we began our cultural segment on North America.  We began celebrating Native People’s culture through stories, pictures and songs.   The four regions that we will be discussing are the Great Plains, the Pacific Northwest, the Eastern Woodlands, and the Southwest.  This week, we focused on the Great Plains Tribes, and discussed where they lived, what they ate, and how weather affected them.  This also led us to count our weather record and see what type of weather “won” in October.  The number of “Windy” and “Sunny” days were tied.  The children decided to continue this weather tracking and we’ll compare November’s weather at the end of the month. 

Monday:  After the big storm this past weekend, we read Sun Song, by Jean Marzollo to remember the beauty of the morning sun.   We really enjoyed the verse that read, “Sun, be Wild. Sun, be bold. Paint the skies pink. And purple and gold.”  We had a smaller than usual crowd of students, due to the massive power outages.  Despite how unsettling the storm was to NH, we provided a safe haven in our classroom.  It was nice to see the kids work as if the chaos outside hadn’t happened.  The kids enjoyed talking about their Halloween plans during snack and later during lunch and recess.  Popular work cycle activities include: movable alphabet, tracing numbers, spelling works (with a focus on rhyming words), and number tracing.

Tuesday:  (Happy Halloween!) At morning circle read Pumpkin Faces, by Emma Rose and practiced some face making.  We celebrate this American Holiday by having our Halloween parade through the school.  The younger students enjoy showing off their costumes to the older students.   Thank you to all the parents who found costumes that the children could wear independently!  Also special thank you goes to L*****’s parents for bringing extra costumes, so that no one would feel excluded.   After the parade, we had our Spanish Class, where we reviewed greetings and numbers.   Our other highlight of the day was the giant leaf pile we created and of course doing work cycle in our costumes.

Wednesday:  At morning circle we discussed that North America is a vast continent with many different regions.  We focus on one particular region in North America: the Great Plains and discussed that the Native People lived off the land.  We read about The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses, by Paul Goble.  We discussed the importance of horses, the type of housing (Teepees) that the Plains Indians had to accommodate their movement, and some of the Native Animals of North America.  Work Cycle lessons included spelling, math works, handwriting, and map work.  After work cycle we had our Music Class with Mr. Wolf where the children enjoyed a sing along to the “Purple People Eaters” and other songs. 

Thursday: We read Legends of the Bluebonnet, by Tomie DePaola.  We introduced the term character and discussed why She Who Was Alone would throw her most prized possession into the fire (As a sacrifice for rain water).  Then we talked about what we were thankful for in our lives.  It warmed my heart to hear many of the children are thankful for “mom and dad” over their favorite toys or a TV show.  Some of the children got the main idea of the story and were thankful for all the “rain” that we had lately, “for power” after so many people didn’t have power for several days even in our own class, and “for Earth” the planet that we call home.  Popular works were bead snake game, map work, introduction to coordinates,  sandpaper letters, geometric solids and Montessori bells.

Friday:  At morning circle we read a book describing the 4 major regions in North America and the Native People that lived there: the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, The Great Plain and the Eastern Woodlands.  The book focused on types of housing, so we dismissed from circle based on our type of housing.  Work cycle popular works included: 100 board and extensions, Part of a Fish, geometric solids, bead math and broad stairs extensions.

Thank you for an exciting week.

Don’t forget  November 23, and 24 is Thanksgiving recess!