A much anticipated part of each week is time with our third and fourth grade reading buddies.  While we don't always read together (our butterfly mobiles were created during this time), many weeks this is just what we do.  This is a great opportunity for kindergartners to form relationships with older children in the school and to foster a love of reading by sharing books with others.  We change partners periodically so children will get to know several buddies well and we are fortunate to have several siblings as reading partners!

On Friday we wrapped up our Structure and Function unit in science by designing and building paint brushes.  Students were presented with the challenge of creating a better paintbrush.  Their first step was sketching several designs and choosing the one they would like to make.

Then they were invited to go "shopping", choosing from a variety of materials to build their paintbrushes.  Some of these included dowels, craft sticks, toothpicks, pipe cleaners, foam, pom-poms, and feathers.  Once materials were gathered they set to work building, resulting in a wide range of new paint brushes!

At the end of the day they were given an opportunity to test their finished products.  Finally, after using their own brushes and observing the creations of their classmates they were asked to think about changes they would make in their design if they could make the paintbrushes again.

To help us practice sight words this week we made a class book called "Animals in the Forest".  The book has a predictable pattern and includes the sight words here, is, in, the, can, you, see, look, and at.   Each child created a forest back ground using water color paints and then glued on a colored picture of their nature name animal. We will use the book to help us practice reading these words in context.

During ECO the last two weeks, children worked in teams to begin building a structure that could keep a cardboard kid warm and dry.  We will check on them next week to see how they fared through the rain and snow!

We continued with the building theme on Wednesday afternoon, this time working in teams to build with four different materials:  cups, keva blocks, cubes, and geo-blocks.  This gave children an opportunity to consider the differences among the materials and effective strategies for building with each one.

On Thursday, we again worked in teams to build houses strong enough to withstand the blowing of a big bad wolf.  Each group was given a bag with either toothpicks, craft sticks, or foam bricks, along with clay and glue.  I will let your child tell you how we tested the strength of each house!

In the midst of all of this team work we had a very insightful class discussion about what makes a good team member.  What kind of person do we hope to have on our team when we are working in a group?  Children said they would like someone who is kind, someone who is willing to listen to and consider everyone's ideas.  They also appreciate teammates who are helpful and "don't wreck other people's work"- we decided we could call this respectful.  Finally they said they want somebody who will stay focused,  do the work, and not give up- someone who is engaged and has perseverance.  We then considered which of these qualities we might have, and which ones we could try to work on so we can all be good team members.

A critical part of our morning meeting each day is the greeting.  We have a variety of greetings in our repertoire, but I think the hands down favorite is the shoe greeting.  I will let your child describe this to you.

Another essential and much anticipated part of our meeting is sharing.  This is a great opportunity for children to practice speaking with a loud, clear, voice using details to describe the share. At the same time, the rest of the class is practicing really listening by sitting quietly, looking at the speaker, thinking about what the speaker is saying and trying to think of thoughtful comments or questions about the share.   Children who share may call on three people to ask a question or make a comment.  We are working on keeping our questions or comments specific and  focused on the share (it's very easy even for adults to make a comment that shifts the focus to us, rather than keeping it on the speaker).  Children are welcome to share objects or do a telling share, something I am particularly fond of as this requires slightly sharper listening skills while we make a picture in our minds.  I have not assigned specific share days, but children are limited to one share per week.