The Maples
5.30 - 6.2
Mark Your Calendars!
- Thursday, June 22 and Friday, June 23 - Half Day for Students (noon dismissal) for Family Conferences
- Monday, June 26 - Eid-al-Fitr - School Closed
- Tuesday, June 27 - Field Day!
- Wednesday, June 28 - Last Day of School (noon dismissal)
Family Survey!
If you haven't already, please follow this link to take a survey about what kind of extended-learning activities you would be interested in for your child this summer!
Ask Me About ...
- The Compass Fort A"Greene"ment to protect the Earth
- The secret creatures that live in the Compass Community Garden (hint: they have wings!)
- Having snack outside in Camel Park
- Acting out story problems in Math Workshop, and singing a subtraction song about ducks
Reading Workshop
This week, the Maples focused on strategies to help them with challenging words. We learned to read all the way to the end of a word, noticing the difference between Free Donuts and Fresh Donuts. We zoomed in on the first letter, and did more practice work with initial consonant blends. We also revisited our snap power, explaining that although we have to read every sound in lots of words, there are certain words that you just know like *that*.
Practice At Home!
- Reinforce what the vowels in the alphabet
- Identify initial consonant blends, like /gl/, /gr/, /bl/, /br/, etc.
- When you get to a tricky word, make sure you sound it out all the way to the end!
Math Workshop
This week, we finished our study of three dimensional shapes with some more exploratory work handling and recreating geometric solids. Using a variety of materials, the Maples combined smaller shapes to make larger ones, and created similar shapes with connecting cubes.
We started a new unit that revisits measurement and introduces the number line. We began our lessons with story problems, and then acted them out. Then, the Maples practiced using the number line to count up and down. We introduced the term "taking away" as we start to introduce the concept of subtraction.
Integrated Unit - Why Do We Garden?
On Tuesday, the Maples visited the Compass Community Garden with their field journals to do some more recording. As we focused on our sense of sight in our previous visit, this week we focused on our sense of hearing.
During Work Time, the Maples used their sense of smell to explore herbs and flowers collected from Campbell's garden.
On Friday, we made dirt play-doh! The "dirt" was really cocoa powder.
Last week, the Maples visited the Community Garden at Fort Greene Park. In pairs, they used digital cameras to document what they observed. Below are some of the photographs they took. As you can see, they are absolutely astounding, and give incredible insight into the perspective of children. There is a clear focus on living things vs. non-living things, as well as a lot of experimentation with foreground and background. We will continue to use this documentation method as we continue our study and exploration of gardens.
Some even figured out how to use the video feature on the camera...
MVI_0156
MVI_0157