Curriculum Night and Insect Investigations

Good Evening CFI families!

As we begin this next week living and learning together I look back to the adventures and explorations of the past week.

We have learned far more than most people would ever want to know about cockroaches however, you can be grateful we are now delving into bees and crickets instead! We’ve already learned about the Queen bee’s job, and about honey combs. We are just starting to explore their role in flower reproduction and pollination.

In math, we are practicing addition and subtraction using a number line and are developing our concept of number sense. Math rotation stations are underway and so I thought I might explain how math looks in our classroom. We always start in a whole group setting on the carpet and we do a few math games together interacting with the smart board. One favorite is the show me game where I roll a die and they have to show me that number on their fingers and we try to find all the ways we can split up each number to make number sentences. For example show me the number five and they put one finger up on one hand and four on the other or zero on one hand and five on the other and so on. This game has been expanded to include show me one more than that number or one less. This just gets their brains working on math and thinking like mathematicians. Next we learn new content and strategies which are then practiced throughout the week in their rotations. At the end of whole group time we generally get out our math journals and they have time to work out two problems each of which we talk about and solve together after they do it independently. After this they go to their tables to work on a new activity each day and I also pull a different small group each day during this time to practice solving problems with me. We will be demonstrating some of these daily practices at curriculum night on Thursday.

In reading we are still reading about kindness and problem solving. We are also reading books such as The Quilt Maker’s Gift which tie these themes in with helping others and quilt making as a way of sharing and showing kindness towards others. We had a student relate the book to the story we read called One Smile wherein the main character, a little girl, smiles at a passing stranger. This simple act of kindness inspires him to help someone else which is then passed on until the end where the man who received that first smile ends of being the person at the car shop who fixes the little girl and her mom’s car. The idea that just her smile sparks kindness in others is one that has stuck with several kids and they have brought it up numerous times as we have read other stories. We have talked about how we can show others kindness and have started a kindness in action journal where we write when we see others displaying kindness. I have written a few entries in the journal documenting the journey we are taking as a class to become more compassionate and empathetic people as I witness this in action.

In writing we have written several pages of an about me book in addition to their free writing stories and through this I am learning so much about your children. In the next week we will be tying in the quiltmaking and the about me ideas to share ourselves through quiltmaking.

We have also had Mrs. Waugh, our new reading specialist and amazing former CFI teacher, as a guest reader during reading workshop this past week. As I have been reading one on one with children to get to know them as readers, Mrs. Waugh has been exploring the power of punctuation in stories such as Yo? Yes! with the class.

In our insect study we have moved on from cockroaches(thankfully) on to bees and now crickets. We had Mrs. Barnes come to our class last week to do a lesson on bees and she brought with her many artifacts that we are still exploring in the science center and in our daily investigations. They were especially intrigued when they discovered she can read a magic school bus book about bees using an amazing Ms. Frizzle voice. We have looked at how honey is made and collected, we learned about the dance bees do to communicate with each other where to collect pollen, and we learned about the different roles bees have in their colonies. Some questions we have yet to investigate are what really happens when bees sting us. Do they die? Can they sting again? This is something some of us had heard but we wanted to investigate further.

We have started making a field guide of our insect sketches. So far we have made a card for a bee, and one for a cricket each with parts labeled and with attention to the colors seen on insect photos. In the next week we will be making insects out of recycled materials and will be exploring the ways insects contribute to their environment and in making products we use such as the silk resulting from silkworms. We stumbled upon this in reading a book about insects and the kids wondered how silk goes from insects to clothing so we will be exploring this further. As always I am excited to see where this journey takes us and am looking forward to seeing many of you at curriculum night on Thursday. Until then have a great night!

School and Class Information:

Thursday, October 6th is Curriculum Night from 6:15-7 in the K,1st, and 2nd grade classrooms. 7:00-7:45 is to be spent in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade classrooms

Wednesday, October 13th is a half day and aftercare is provided that day. Just like in the past, we do provide bagged lunches to those who need it from the Summit Parkway Cafeteria.

Friday, October 14th is a teacher workday

Friday October 21st is our next Sandhills Library trip and is our first Gathering

Thursdays are our school library day so this is the day each week the library books are due back. If they have not returned them by that point they can not visit the library to check out new ones so please bring back checked out materials.

School pictures were sent home last week and need to either be returned with money enclosed with the order or returned with no interest of purchasing the pictures.

Home to School Connections:

We are going to be making insects using recycled materials so please send in any paper towel rolls, empty water bottles, cardboard, etc. that you may have around the house.

I am sending home a calendar tomorrow with school dates on it. There are also questions and spaces for you add events of your own. More information will be provided along with the calendar but be on the lookout.

Please continue to fill out the nightly reading log I have sent home for the past few weeks. Please have your child fill out the form each time. These provide me with data and help your children be accountable for their own reading and learning. This will also be a lead in to our creating reading logs in our independent reading time each day.

More Pictures: Explorations means to some more writing time, time to make something in the science center, and pretending to be a teacher by leading shared reading with a big book. Also somehow bugs have ended up on my desk! Plus check out the compound eyes Naimah decided to make for herself!