We had another fantastic ECO adventure on Wednesday morning.  Our walk into the woods took a bit of perseverance with all of the new snow in the field, but there was far less snow at our site in the forest.  Children had fun finding their cardboard kids, incorporating snow into new building projects, and roasting apples (thanks to Carrie for showing so much perseverance in starting a fire with wet wood).  And our walk back out was much easier with a newly broken path to follow!

We have learned nearly all of the lower case letters and their corresponding sounds as well as several sight words.  With this knowledge, for the last several weeks we have been working on reading.  Our practice has taken place with simple sentences in a pocket chart as well as emergent texts,  which have one or two sentences on a page and follow a pattern (I see the car, I see the truck...)  with pictures that closely match the text.  As we practice reading, we have emphasized that words are read from left to right, top to bottom, and are separated by spaces.  We have been using the strategies of pointing to the words as we read, paying attention to the first letter of words and the corresponding sound, and using pictures for context clues.  Many of the books we read follow the same pattern throughout, but we also have some books with slight variations to keep us paying attention!  I will send home a list of sight words as well as some emergent books next week in case your child is interested in practicing these at home.

We took advantage of Tuesday's heavy, wet snow to enjoy some extra time outside.  Perseverance was on display as children moved enormous snowballs to create a fort.  Just as we were about to go inside we were pleasantly surprised by the rest of the school joining us for a little snow party!

On Tuesday afternoon we began a science unit on weather.  We began with a discussion of weather and its impacts on our daily lives.  It was especially easy to connect this to ECO since weather is always a consideration and being prepared for the weather each week ensures that we still have fun.

I then asked students to imagine going to ECO but staying out in the forest for two weeks.  What would we need to have a positive experience?  Food and water, of course, and a shelter to keep us warm and dry.  Each child was then given a cardboard kid (a little person cut out of cardboard) and asked to "dress" them in a way that would help them stay warm during their time in the woods.

We  also looked at the book Making Shelter, by Neil Champion, which is about building different shelters, focusing particularly on forest huts.  Students were invited to think about what materials they might find in our forest space that could be used for building a shelter, as well as designs that would help keep our cardboard kids warm and dry.  On Wednesday morning they set to work building their shelters with their cardboard kids in them.

We will check in on the kids when we return to the forest in three weeks to see how they fared!  We finished our morning enjoying the sunshine, milder temperatures, and tea in the forest.

During math our activities almost always include a game.  Games are a fun way for children to work on various math skills including counting, number recognition and decomposition (different ways to make one number.)   While we play these primarily to strengthen our math skills, it is also a great opportunity to practice the social skills involved in playing a partner game, which include being kind, flexible, and patient.   We have had discussions about the importance of playing games the right way (not cheating!), playing willingly with any partner, helping each other and being a good sport.  We always end our games by shaking hands and saying "good game!"  Ask your child if he or she has a favorite math game at school.  At home, any game that involves dice or playing cards is a great way to practice math skills.