Pine Class News Update
September 11, 2015
The Pine class is back at 300 Adelphi!
Pines have been writing
about "small moments"
in their own lives.
Ask your Pine what "small moment" in their lives they chose to share in their writing.
We've been taking an "inventory" of all of the new the materials in our classroom.
Lots of different tools have been used.
Pairs worked really well together.
We have a much better understanding of how many things we have!
We've been learning about taking body breaks and using fidget tools when needed.
fidgets for our hands
a "fox rocker"
taking a movement break during a lesson
We've also had lots of lovely read alouds exploring new and old books in our library.
What was the problem in the story Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni?
or
What did the little boy learn was really making the penguin sad in the story Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers?
The Pines have been building a new list of examples of our class norms in practice.
Take care of yourself.
Take care of others.
Take care of our commons.
We took time to look at the charts of examples of each norm we'd brainstormed last year. Then we broke into small groups to think about how we would explain each norm this year.
Last year the 3rd norm was "take care of our classroom". Now, with a larger view of our community and world, the Pines revised this norm to "take care of the commons". One group thought of insightful ways to uphold this norm such as "keeping spaces safe", "taking care of trees and plants", "saving water", "shutting off lights and AC", and "reusing things that might go in the trash". Another group brainstormed ideas that "make us good people" with the final note being to "be joyful".
Paul and Anna are very impressed with the growth in the Pine students' ability to illustrate the norms in words and the broadening of their perspectives.
This coming week the Pines are going to be looking for these norms in action!
Over the weekend ask your Pine to tell you if they see any of our norms in action outside of school!
Time to explore
new and old materials
new and old friendships
Extra Clothes Reminder
Paul - paul@brooklyncompass.org
Anna - anna@brooklyncompass.org
Feel free to reach out at any time with questions, concerns, comments!
We love hearing from our Pine families!