Our first week heated up and filled up quickly with important community building, establishing routines, meeting new core arts teachers, and, of course, learning!
Our new Bridges math program for K-6 launched our very first day back at school by creating our own list for what makes a community of math learners:
Next, we created people glyphs to visually represent how we each best learn math. Then we graphed our class findings in different ways and made comparison statements. Most Temescal mathematicians like to work in pairs, use pictures to show their thinking, and enjoy doing math in the evening. Next week we will be continuing bar graphing, and also working on number sense and starting Number Corner.
After listening to Jubal’s Wish being read aloud we wrote and illustrated our hopes and dreams for the year. A hope is a classroom goal that can be reached this year in third grade, like getting better at spelling, multiplication, or gardening. By sharing our dreams through writing we stretched our imaginations and connected with each other as a community of writers. Ask your child what his/her dream is for this year and beyond!
Core arts teachers visited Temescal and we met new interns Yunoka (Music), Jenny (Spanish), and Yangling (Art). They are also part of the amazing Extended Day Team! The Music and Spanish teams joined in our getting-to-know you activity “A Warm Wind Blows,” and we also learned a little Spanish and sang songs together. The art team shared some of their own pieces with us and Yangling read us a picture book that she is working on. We were excited to learn that Yangling will be sharing her love and expertise of comics and animation this year in the Art Studio!
Susan visited us during Information Literacy and went through the responsible use technology forms that went home in your child’s backpack. Please review the form with your child and both sign and return it by Wednesday.
We were amazed by the Temescalians love of books and amazing reading stamina! They were excited to decorate their book boxes and fill them with their favorites from our classroom library. Please feel free to join us most Fridays at 8:30 to have your child read to you and show you other things that are happening in the classroom. This is always a very casual and relaxing time in Temescal with tea ready to be served!
Friday the 8th we will not have reading time with grown ups since we will be headed to Lake Anza . . . check out the latest Newsnotes if you want to join us!
We ended the week with our first Super Science Friday afternoon. Typically we have hands-on stations that we rotate through where we get to experiment and explore a topic we are studying. During this time Julianne also comes into the classroom to add an artistic element. This week we went with a hot and emergent topic and borrowed Mitch’s bladeless fan to study. In our S.T.E.A.M (Science, Teachnology, Engineering, Art, and Math) journals we made and labeled observational drawings, and then hypothesized how the fan works. Then we watched watched a video and discussed and revised our models.
Can you believe we fit all that (and more!) into three days? It’s going to be a jam-packed year full of wonder and big learning. We are excited and thankful to take this journey with you and your children. Please let us know if you have any questions or feedback and stay cool!
Julia & Lisa
