We want to share our learning over the past few weeks with our families! Here are some of the learning activities we have been doing!
We are mathematicians!
We have been exploring tens and ones and practicing being flexible with numbers. We have explored different ways to make ten, as well as how we can organize items into groups of tens and ones. We have been practicing building flexible number trains (building the same length train in different ways using cuisenaire rods).
We have also been doing class number talks. During our Number Talks, we have been exploring different problems that involve counting and estimating. We have enjoyed sharing our ideas as well as listening to the ideas of others.
We are authors!
We have continued to find and share our stories during Story Workshop. Students have been orally sharing stories using loose parts and capturing their stories in books. We have continued to look at different moves that authors make to help tell their stories and discussing how we might use the same moves in our own stories.
We have been exploring different story elements including characters, setting, and events. Over the past week, we had a chance to work with plasticine to create settings for our stories. We discussed how the setting includes both when and where our stories take place.
We are scientists!
We have been exploring the questions How can we explore light and sound? and What discoveries can be made?
Through hands on activities, we have been making observations and sharing our wonders about light and sound! Ask us to share our findings with you!
We are citizens!
In early November, we developed our classroom charter to help us guide us in being together in our classroom. We used the question “How do we want to feel at school?” to help us through the creation of our charter.
This is a living charter and we will continue to revisit and revise our charter as needed.
We have also continued to use our Mood Meter to help us identify and label our emotions throughout the day. We have explored parts of our brain that support us in decision making (prefrontal cortex), memories (hippocampus) and the part of our brain that reacts FAST when we perceive danger (amygdala). We have been focusing on building our understanding of emotions and how we can recognize certain emotions in both ourselves and in others.
As we explore feelings and emotions, we have been exploring ways to regulate our emotions, including taking a Meta Moment (this comes from the RULER program from Yale Centre For Emotional Intelligence). Students worked together to create our custom Meta Moment visual (picture below) to help walk us through the steps of taking a Meta Moment.
A Meta Moment helps us to pause when something happens so that we have a chance to notice changes in the way we feel and think before reacting. Ask your child to share more about a Meta Moment with you. As a class, we are creating videos to help teach other classes about taking a Meta Moment! Once we complete our videos, we will share them on our ePortfolios!