This week I had the opportunity to share work from our classroom in a process called Rounds North at Endicott College.  It is a review process designed to help educators notice and truly see student work to then fine tune your teaching in ways that further support the students.  We spent over three hours exploring the work and wondering about the thinking behind it.  I left full of wonder and curiosity about all the thinking that is going on in our classroom.  I am anxious to sit with the children to ask them more about their thinking.  And I look forward to supporting them in finding ways to share more of those ideas through their words and illustrations.

I have also been exploring the notion of mindfulness in the classroom and am reading The Way of Mindful Education by Daniel Rechtschaffen.  His call for children to have uninterrupted blocks of time to think and feel settled and more aware has made me wonder about our schedule and pace.  Having the time for reflection that participating in the Rounds protocol offered made me wonder about finding time for quiet in our classroom as well.  Taking time to see all that was in the student work was a real gift.  I am grateful for that chance and am looking forward to sharing my renewed sense of appreciation for the thinking in 3E with our class.  Stopping to notice what is happening now in the moment, rather than looking on to the next set of standards and expectations has helped me notice their is much learning to celebrate in our class.

Celebrating Kindness and Gratitude – S.E.L.

This week we joined the “Compassion It” movement to see if we can make compassion a verb.  We are trying to notice how small acts of kindness, care and support make us happy and make our classroom a more relaxed place to learn together.  There is a short video on the website. You might like to watch it with your child to begin a conversation about how small acts of thoughtfulness add up and make an impact.  You can find it here:  http://compassionit.com

We’ve been reading books like Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed and Weezer Changed the World along with taking time to think about and notice how we help each other feel happier and more successful in what we are doing.

 

 

Lots of Writing and Creating

This week we created collage illustrations from the painted papers we created to go with our fables.  It was a thoughtful process to plan and put pieces together to bring one part of the story to life.  It seems like the class had fun exploring color and shape and finding ways to add detail to show action and emotion.  Every illustration is different and striking.

The class has continued to work on their museum displays for next week.  Our 3E Museum will be Thursday, January 22 from 5:15 to 6:15.  That is the mid-point of the three families who responded to our survey.  We hope all the children will be present to share their research, writing and display.  And of course we hope all the families can come to view the displays and ask questions of the researchers.

The children have also shared lots of their ideas through their blogs.  It is interesting to see the different topics the students choose to write about and how they decide to illustrate them.  Depending on whose blog you read, you may notice the friendly competition to have the most words in a post.  This has not always led to the best writing – but it has created a fun atmosphere around blogging and is helping children think about the kinds of things they can write about and share.  Some of the children are working to create original stories, others are writing about favorite video games or afterschool activities.  Still others are writing book reviews or directions for things to make.

Reading the comments that are left on the blogs helps the children consider the impact their writing has on an outside audience.  It helps them consider what their words mean to readers.  So thank you for taking that time.  It is greatly appreciated.

Bits and Pieces –

• We are learning about place value and working with larger amounts.  We are finding ways to record math our math thinking more efficiently.
• We have a challenge with Mr. Caron on Tuesday, January 20.  I may be outdoors so the children should be ready for that event if the weather allows.
• We have nearly completed learning the whole cursive alphabet.  Some of the upper-case letters in this particular alphabet system are quite different but we are getting the hang of it.
• Ask your child what is happening with Morty and Katrina now that they have reached Zorgamazoo in our chapter read-aloud.
• We’ve begun learning about magnets and magnetic force.  We’re learning the terms attract, repel, poles and lines of force.  See if your child can name the metals that are attracted to magnets or the theories about how magnetism works.  If may be a little early in our exploration, but they are beginning to understand – and magnets are fun!