Weeks Two and Three
We started talking about what will be happening around the classroom during one of the most important hours of our day this week: small group reading rotation hour. During this time, I will be meeting with a small group of students to instruct and enrich their particular needs. While I am doing that, your children will be either completing an activity on the computer, working on a writing assignment/choice, or reading to themselves. To prepare them for these independent stations, we spend all of September, and some of October practicing those stations. This practice time helps to build creative problem-solving skills, cooperation, and collaboration because (as the below poster describes) they cannot talk to me unless four very specific things happen in our classroom:
Here we are building reading stamina!
Video!We learned how to generate our own survey questions, then conduct an unbiased survey (the best we could), and create a pictograph and a bar graph using our survey results. I am so impressed with how well they handled these activities!
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Video!We’ve continued our study of growth mindset, but we’ve also added in learning about three parts of our brain: the amygdala, the hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex. MindUp teaches us that we have to learn strategies to control the amygdala, otherwise we will fight, run away, or freeze when it senses danger – even if there’s no actual danger! We’ve differentiated mindful versus unmindful behaviors, talked about listening mindfully, and started our “core practice” of deep belly breathing. Ask your child to teach you the appropriate way to breathe tonight!
This week was also our first garden lesson where we got to help weed, enrich the soil, and scatter plant lettuce that we’ll get to enjoy when the colder months come around! Check us out in action!
Video!Overall, another fantastic two weeks. Keep it coming!
