Maps

 Before I continue this blog I want to say how impressed I am with your children.   They have truly embraced what it means to be a community.  The last two days I have seen our students reach out and do random acts of kindness for each other.  Whether it was Brooklyn making an origami gorilla for Ren because she knows he likes them.  Farrah taking her time to look through a bookshelf and find cat books for Kaia when she was feeling sad.  These are just two examples of how your children look out for each other.  

Lucy was working on the whiteboard and inspired a few friends to start creating maps.  Lucy's map was of a deep woods where a mean crocodile lived.

Kaia created a map of the school, tracing with her finger the path that we would have to take.

Farrah created a journey that started at school, you had to take a bus to her house.  Pick up her mom and dad.  Then head to the airport where you would travel to an island with a black panther.

The boys were trying to  find a way to escape from the classroom and visit Henry's dad in his office in the Athletic Dept.  Henry came up with an idea to build a map using the small blocks.  The group conversed as they started building and their original design idea changed.

Our local author Charlotte created  4 more books about the two potatoes that are friends which we read before heading outside .

THURSDAY

This morning students were interested in working with the thinking putty I have available for  students that need help during group time to stay focused.  The putty is quite hard when you first try to manipulate it but the longer you hold, squeeze and stretch it the softer it becomes and some of the putty even changes color.  Friends practiced pulling it apart quickly and slowly to see the difference.  One makes it snap apart the other stretches it out.  

Lucy continued working on maps.  She explained how it was a map to help them escape from the school.  She showed me how they would escape using the stairs.

We finished our morning meeting continuing our discussion about Earth Day and ways we could help the earth.  We read One child, one planet by Bridget McGovern Llewellyn.

Inspired by our discussion and the book we went  for a work  to collect litter and look for signs of spring. The class  found lots of litter.  We also found rocks that we could throw into the pond along the side of the path.  On the way back to the classroom we were lucky enough to meet two dogs going for a walk with their owner and a bald eagle flying high above us.  

QUESTIONS

How can we help the earth?

Was the book fiction or non fiction?