Special Friends Day

Thank you grandparents and special friends for the wonderful afternoon.  The children were so happy to spend time with you sharing a favorite book and activity.  Here are some photos of the special event.  Enjoy!

Lauren is reading The Kissing Hand

Happy Thanksgiving from Liliana and Lauren

Just a Few Highlights

I seem to have photos for a couple of events only, although it was a typical week.

Maya's mom

read this wonderful book!

The children loved it so much!

She also read a few very enjoyable Shel Silverstein's poems.  

Our middle school buddies visited to

tell us all about the hunger awareness event, by the 8th grade class, coming up soon.

On Friday our buddies made

cards with the K/1's.  The cards will be sold to raise money for an animal shelter. The

K/1's also made cards on their own during project time.

The K/1's project on Homes and Habitats

raised their awareness of the needs of animals.  They are excited to be able to reach out to the

larger community to help animals in need.  The cards will be placed on the front desk. The children

wrote their names in the back of the cards.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Liliana

Highlights of the Last Two Weeks - Happiness Bucket, Learning to spin on a drop spindle, Animal Research, and First Grade Math

Annabel's mom was a guest reader.

She read this book.

The "invisible" bucket can be filled with acts of kindness, and all kinds of good behavior

 that makes everyone happy.

Susie brought lots of stickers for the kids. The

stickers represent "good things" for filling the "Happiness Bucket."

The children enjoyed the activity immensely!

Everyone was engaged and having fun filling his/her bucket.

Joselle, a friend of Liliana, visited three times to teach the children where clothes come from - the natural fabrics. The first time Joselle visited

she showed pictures of animals that produce wool.  Also she showed the children clothing she

made from spinning her own wool.

On her second visit, Joselle, showed the children

how to prepare wool for spinning.

 Separate fibers and pick out debris!

 Wash the wool, rinse, wash again and rinse.  Blot and air dry.

Card the wool - disentangle

Gently roll the wool off the card, and now

it's ready for spinning.

Spinning on a drop spindle!

On her third visit, Joselle brought yarn ready for spinning.

Joselle's husband made drop spindles for each child.

Joselle is preparing the spindles for the children.

The children are now spinning!

The children discover the challenge of keeping the spindle

spinning.

And also experience success.

The First Grade mathematicians representing

numbers with the tens and ones blocks.

We began a unity in Geometry by finding

different shapes in the classroom and creating a book about them.

 These children are filling in a space to make a design using a specific amount of shapes, or filling in an outline. The children keep track of the pattern block shapes they use- how many of each. They add them all up to get a total of shapes used.

It is a challenging task but brings great satisfaction.

The K/1's began their animal research with the help of their middle school buddies.

 Until next time,
Liliana