We had a chance to begin planning the details of our small group weather presentations this week, and to finally see some changes in the weather.  The humidity is rising, rain is falling, and the wind is picking up.  

 We finished reading Flat Stanley, and worked on a summary of the book. In our reading journal we have a card with "first, then, and last."  Students can choose to write a three sentence summary or to draw pictures.  In our listening center we heard the story of "The Little Red Hen."

Math Matters:
A group worked with odds and evens this week.  B group worked with doubling numbers from 1 to 10.  

The brass bowl doubles everything that goes into it.  The boys are working on a street with houses numbering even numbers on one side and odd on the other side.

​We mixed red and yellow paint to make orange and used the orange to paint pumpkins.  Here are some that are completed.

We learned about different kinds of smart...Multiple Intelligences.  Each student spent time answering questions to see which of the intelligences are more developed.  Many of the students came out strong in all of the intelligences, indicating strong curiosity and a joy for life. The chart below doesn't include natural intelligence, but our survey did.

The morning we met to complete the surveys, we packed up our books and journals and grabbed our yoga mats and had literacy outside.  

There was much more as usual.  Until next week...

This week we began doing some mapping.  We mapped the story of the Three Little Pigs on Tuesday, and a castle scene with goats and a horse on Thursday.

We worked with Jj and oa this week.  Goats have oa and they eat oats.  We went out to the barnyard to draw goats in our nature journals.  We discovered that Coconut has a little beard now!

We continued charting the weather every day.  We added barometric pressure to our investigation.  The thing that changed the most was the humidity.  We worked with our weather groups to think and discuss some season questions like:  Which season do animals eat more?  Which season has more rain?  What causes seasons? After our discussions and class sharing, we watched  two short movies.  One was about seasons and one about fall.

In math, A groups worked with quadrilaterals, parallels, and triangles as well as tallying amounts to 10.  B group worked with odd and even numbers,  and writing addition equations.

We started a new read aloud, Flat Stanley,  and began making Halloween art in the art center.  The week went very fast!  

Today we will be meeting to discuss the goals your children and I have set for this semester.  Setting goals is an important part of our school culture.  Setting goals helps us blossom.

This week we worked with the letter sounds (b) an (ai).  Most of the students still have trouble telling b and d apart.  You can help them by having them practice making b and d at home.  Baking bread is always fun...make a b shaped bun.  Of course, you can bathe the dog.  Here is Bellisima, my dog, getting a bath this week.

We worked with the -all family of words, all, ball, call, tall, fall, wall and mall.  

We worked with rhyming words and continued our weather until.

To help us understand the upcoming holiday, Columbus Day, we did a water color of the ocean to retell the story of Columbus coming across the Atlantic Ocean in the three ships from Spain, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.  We learned that sometimes people who make important contributions to the world also cause harm to others. 

We had a Tuesday tea party with hats in honor of Mercy Watson, who had a tea party with Stella and Frank in book 5.  Unlike Mercy, we got to drink real tea and eat real tea cakes (batty cakes that we baked that morning). We drank tea in the china cups that belonged to Alessandra's great great grandmother. Nothing got broken!  

Finally, I have some shots of the reptile show.  It was outstanding!

We made wind socks this week, launching our study of weather.  We are recording the weather in science notebooks.

​ We worked with the (u) sound on Monday, and played umbrella bingo in our reading groups.  We also learned a fun song about a HUGE umbrella.  

Another big work this week was the work of setting goals to prepare for our IQ meetings next week.  This is not the easiest thing to do, because we want to think we already know everything there is to know.  It also seems like we might need to work hard if we have goals.  Are we sure we want to agree to that kind of thing?  Hmm?  YES!

Sadly, Eva had to move to a charter school this week.  Her family is hoping to be able to come back.

Math groups in level A worked with ordering, and tallying amounts up to ten.  The level B group worked with writing equations and place value.

Finally, we began Mercy Watson Thinks Like a Pig.  The funny thing was that the Watsons were enjoying lemonade this week just like we were!