March 20-24, 2023

This week we spent a lot of time on magnets. After our Big Buddies sharing their magnet mazes with us last Friday the class was really interested in making their own. Monday we did some magnet explorations, testing items around the room looking for what is magnetic vs. non magnetic.

Tuesday we began creating our magnet mazes. some students used smaller pieces and built their mazes in a tray while other used larger unit blocks and built mazes on the ground and tables. We then tested different types of magnets on different cars to find the perfect match. Using the force of the magnets students moved their cars through the mazes they created.

Wednesday we had Spanish with Sr. Diaz and talked about some of our cosas favoritas, favorite things. Students drew pictures of their favorite lugar-place, comida- food, and mi familia-my family using their favorite color. We also had special Mystery Reader, Mrs. Ankrum’s daughter Anna.

Thursday we spent time investigating and sorting objects that float and sink.

Today our Big Buddies came so we could share our magnet mazes with them, create a few new ones with them, and paint using a magnet and paper clip.

Mon-Thurs: https://photos.app.goo.gl/vdmjE9gdM4dgCEJU7

Friday: https://photos.app.goo.gl/xehcUhAcMz3GdY6Q6

March 13-17, 2023

We had several woodland visitors outside our window this week. Monday morning there was a total of 5, which of course meant we HAD to stop what we were doing and quietly observe them.

This week’s weather gave some students a chance to experience “Penguin Hill”. This is the hill on the front playground, and although short is quite steep. Children rolled, slid down their bottoms, and even used cones as sleds to go down!

Last night a sneaky little leprechaun visited our room. He left green footprints on the floor, drew a picture on our bathroom mirror, forgot to flush after using our toilet, and turned our investigation table into a fun pot of gold.

After snack we visited our Big Buddies. They were finishing up a magnet lab and created magnet mazes to share with us. Many of our students had so much fun they ask to create our own! This fits in perfectly with our new unit, How the world works: Observations generate questions, and is now in the plans for nest week 🙂

https://photos.app.goo.gl/iErWFAmdJfmqtHaA7

March 6 & 7, 2023

From Art Gallery displays to forts, tunnels, cars, sleds, and more; the possibilities of cardboard boxes are endless. Monday was spent popping bubble wrap, tearing down our gallery and letting our imaginations run wild.

Today we decorated our buckets, searched our poem for a letter in our name, and played a new game during centers, pre-k’s version of corn hole.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ubS59GZwJQRAq6ni8

February 27-March 3

This week we finished working on our last art project for our Galler: What does your imagination look like?. This was a multimedia piece. We also finished up any art projects students may have missed or need to add final touches too.

On Friday our big buddies came to see our art work. PreK stood by their exhibit and shared their work while 2nd grade toured.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/sEV8qUdEEo2MtHuX7

February 21-24

This short week was packed full of fun, new experiences, and hard work!

We were working on finishing up assessments this week, and spent lots and lots of time writing and playing games. Allowing the class to enjoy themselves while I secretly took millions of notes and “quizzed” their knowledge without actually quizzing them 😉

We got to enjoy another amazing Spanish class with Sr. Diaz. He sings, he uses puppets, he makes up games, he is pretty terrific!

As an extra surprise, we got a new class dragon/lizard! In addition to our Bearded Dragon we also now have a Frilled Neck Lizard 🦎 She is small still, under a year old but very docile. Frilled Lizards have 2 frills or flaps on their neck, one on each side that when feel threatened raise and extend. We have not seen this in person, although did look up pictures to see what it may look like. Most of the class refers to her frills as her hair because they lay flat against her neck and do look like long hair. These lizards also can run very quickly and often do so upright on their hind legs. Some of the student did get to see this, but it was so fast even though she did it on the carpet with us sitting around her a few missed it!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/gdfvFc7FwEtMWHMz9

Friday was our field trip to The Mansfield Art Museum! We walked through the woods to the Art Center. Leaving our muddy boots and coats outside we ventured throughout the Art Center in our socks. As soon as entering their atrium you are greeted by a giant installation hanging from the ceiling almost to the floor. We began our journey sitting on the floor under this amazing piece, while our tour guide Mr. Tony taught us all about the piece and how it was created. Next we moved upstairs to explore the Fort. A black tent that from the outside you can see was created by sewing many different black clothes together. Once we explored inside it looked like hundreds of stars covered the sides and top and upon closer inspection the students realized the stars were actually holes poked in the fabric that created words.

Finally we had an art scavenger hunt. Using photos supplied by the Art Center students took turns finding the piece on their card. They then shared one thing they liked about the artwork and one thing they found unique or interesting.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/CFe3KWFscgDhwDhB9

February 15-17, 2023

The weeks keep flying by! It seems like they’re over as soon as they start.

Wednesday morning we started our day sculpting monsters out of play-dough adding googly eyes and straws for an extra flair. I had planned on sculpting with clay next week but they had so much fun creating with the play-dough I decided today was a better day for it 🙂

So following snack we got out the clay, google eyes, straws, beads and pipe cleaners then jumped right in. Your students created monsters, donuts, aliens, astronauts, houses and everything else you can imagine. Once they’re completely dried we will get them back out and add paint!

We also has Spanish with Sr. Diaz, who is still amazing!

On Thursday we looked some wire sculptures by Alexander Calder, and had a try at wire self portraits. We used wire coat hangers for the framing of each child’s face. The students then used pipe cleaners to create their eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and any other details they chose. They turned out beautiful. We will be adding hair next week.

Today, Friday, we began our day creating shadow puppets. This was a new activity for us as a class and got very silly. We had snack in the 2nd grade classroom with our buddies. After snack we split into 4 groups and rotated through 4 different art activities. Each child had their name written on a piece of paper in white crayon, then used water color paint to find the “secret message”. We played in shaving cream on a table then added a few drops of color to swirl in and finished by laying a paper on top to create a marbling effect. Our third table had empty water bottle and permanent markers to color, once all finished I cut them and hung them to create a unique mobile. The last table had colored bubble solution and bubble wands to create pictures by blowing bubbles.

We finish our Friday with Mystery Readers! A students grandparents came and read our class 2 fun books, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs which is told in the wolf’s perspective and a class favorite, Click Clack Moo.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/iX6aPsEpo2BjiCds8

February 14, 2023

Happy Valentine’s Day, or as many of the class said “ValentiMe’s Day!”

We began our day decorating bags to collect our Valentine’s. Side note for myself, next year get much bigger bags! Holy cow, you all did so much for our class year and the students were loving every minute❤️

We were able to enjoy recess outside with our friends from the other ELC classes, before heading inside for snack.

Before starting centers we practiced our math skills while graphing candy hearts. We sorted them by color, then placed them on a graph to count how many of each color we had, and compare which we had more or less of.

After graphing our hearts we took turns passing out our Valentine’s. Your students are loaded up! Teacher Jessi even made a surprise visit to our room so she could pass out Valentine’s she go them.

If Valentine’s Day wasn’t exciting enough, we had birthdays to celebrate- yesterday AND today 🎉🎉🎉

Don’t forget to check your child’s backpack today. They’ve been working hard the past several days on Valentine’s for you 😉

https://photos.app.goo.gl/TEFC7rPtYXEFrrVp6

February 9 & 10, 2023

These past 2 days we have finished up our sculptures, started our valentines pictures, and started reading new books.

Today most students brought home a letter book. Each book focuses on one letter. Students are not expected to be able to read these books, however using the pictures and context clues most students should be able to tell assume what the words are saying with some assistance.

We also had a Mystery Reader today, Miss Susie. Miss Susie works as a one-on-one aide in our K-6 building and is so much fun! Many of the class is familiar with Miss Susie so having her as our Mystery Reader today was extra special.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/YVvbjtsd5A8v5amf9

February 7 & 8, 2023

On Tuesday we made new pink and white play dough during morning activity! We also painted in our body shadows that we traced last week.

Wednesday we Picked out cardboard shapes and either painted them or created a sculpture with them. The students chose if they wanted to paint or create first, whichever they chose not to do today they will do tomorrow.

We had our first Spanish class with Sr. Diaz today! It was wonderful ❣️ Sr. Diaz sang songs with us, taught us several new words and introduced to two of his friends (puppets) Gustavo and his sister Florentina. I am very excited about our continued classes with Sr. Diaz, and the students are equally excited.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/kbNoEHKnQ3nXjn8i9

February 6, 2023

The temperature was finally warm enough to have an outside recess! Although there wasn’t much snow to play in today Hopefully Ohio’s weather will figure it out for us soon.

We took some time during centers to paint the inside of our shadow outlines from last week.

Since our 100th Day was so busy and we didn’t get to our 100 Bottle Collections, we shared them during Closing Meeting. After each student shared their items we compared how full each bottle is. We then talked about why even though each bottle contained 100 items they all took up different amounts of space in the bottles.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/btXGs7pPq7dBdX7q7