For all children in the class, one of the most coveted times of the day is choice time.  It is the one time that I am sure to incorporate into each day no matter what schedule changes we might have, partly because I know how much the children look forward to it, but mostly because I think it is one of the most valuable times in our day for the development of critical social skills and for learning.  It is a fantastic opportunity for children to be self directed and creative while practicing important life skills such as cooperation and perseverance.  On a given day, children engage in a wide variety of activities during choice, often inspiring each other with their ideas.  Some of these include art projects, imaginative play such as house or animals, building with legos, magnet tiles, and blocks (or some crazy combination of these), playing games, doing puzzles, sewing, and writing.

As part of our unit on geometry we have been exploring 3-D shapes.  Children conducted several experiments with cubes, cylinders, cones, and spheres to see which shapes would roll and which shapes would stack.  Although results varied depending on how the experiments were carried out, as a class we concluded that shapes will roll on curved surfaces and that they will stack on flat surfaces.

Children also had an opportunity to try to build their own 3-D models using toothpicks, pipe cleaners, and model magic.  Creating models of the shapes provides practice with spatial reasoning and also helps children develop an understanding of each shape's important attributes (is it curved, how many vertices does it have, etc.).

On Wednesday morning during ECO we continued our exploration of animals in winter, with a focus on river otters.  We began the morning meeting Frank the otter, carefully observing and describing his features and how they might benefit him.  For example, one astute observer noticed he has webbed feet, great for swimming.  Next we learned about  "six slick tricks" active animals use to survive during the cold months.  One student graciously volunteered to model these adaptations for the class:  growing a thicker coat, which we compared to adding a sweater, or for some animals thick, fluffy feathers, a coating of oil on fur for animals that might go in the water in winter - like adding a raincoat or wet suit, eating lots to add a layer of fat for insulation, staying in a close group - we compared this to snuggling with a stuffed friend, and hanging out under the snow, which is like going under a thick blanket. 

We also reviewed and practiced the four animal gaits before heading outside to look for tracks and other signs of animals.  While we once again saw lots of tracks, we didn't see any signs of otters.  However we returned to the hill and became otters, doing our best otter slides down the hill.  We ended our morning playing a really fun and active game called "Otters and Crayfish".  This is essentially a tag game made a little more exciting and challenging with snow paths that players must stay on as well as multiple taggers.  Thank you for sending children prepared for the morning!

Last week we celebrated our one hundredth day of school with several fun activities.  During math children engaged in several searches, which are always fun and motivating.   One was for 100 numbered tiles, which they matched  with their corresponding number on a hundreds chart.  The second was for tiny pictures of objects arranged in groups of 10 up to 100.  They used clipboards and recording charts to note the number of each kind of object once they found the picture (e.g. 20 hexagons or 90 little bears.)  Some children wrote numbers to 100 while others chose to make sets of 100 objects.  Throughout the day we worked on writing 100 words as a class.  Finally, with our third and fourth grade learning buddies, children created structures using 100 marshmallows and toothpicks.  While celebrating the 100th day is mostly about recognizing a milestone and having fun, I find that emphasis on 100 for a day or two can also deepen children's sense of our number system and how numbers to 100 are composed and written as groups of 10 and additional ones (42 is four tens and 2 ones, for example).