Send a Little Love!

Wow!  The First Grade Post Office opened on Valentine's Day with a glorious rush to buy stamps!  Later in the afternoon, the students were swamped with special valentine notes sending love to many, many students.  What an amazing way to kick off our fabulous mail tradition!

Getting ready has meant lots of work and lots of fun.  The students designed their hero stamps with skill, adding great details and color.  The staff at Staples were so impressed when they saw the art work that they were about to turn into our sets of stamp plates.  The stamps had to be cut apart, mailboxes painted and readied, posters announcing the opening, a visit to Elkins Park Post Office and practice making change!!

At the Post Office, we saw how the mail is dated, cancelled and sorted.  All the jobs that we would be doing with our own postal system.  The first graders are so excited to be in charge of this very special project and did a great job getting started on Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day was also very special as the children created cards for their meeting partners, grade team partners, parents and classmates!  That's a whole lot of love to send out!  Many students even asked to make more for siblings and special friends.  It is a wonderful opportunity for writing that is so meaningful.

Watch our slideshow to see all the work and joy that has just begun in first grade!

And don't forget - BUY STAMPS and SEND MAIL!!

This free slideshow design made with Smilebox

Old Favorite "Circle Round the Zero" with Kindergarten

I distinctly remember when I first learned how to play "Circle Round the Zero" when I was in kindergarten. My music teacher, the model of all teachers, was wonderful, warm and calm. She was British and had a delightful accent and a wonderful way of making everything in music class feel exciting and magical.

Teaching us this fun movement game was no different. It is with her spirit in mind that I try to teach with this same kind of excitement for an old favorite game that is popular among the younger set. Actually, I remember continuing to play in in 5th grade and we all still really enjoyed it!

Students learn to sing the song that gives instruction to the "it" about how to stand, directionally and relative to the next "it." This is a great way for students to practice their skills with directionality-front, side, and back. Students also have to "pat that good ole zero" in time to the music waiting for just the right moment to pat the shoulders of their peer.

This game is also fun because everyone plays an important role as the ensemble while they are waiting for their turn to be "it." Without the ensemble singing the "directions" the "it" does not know when to stop and find the next "it".

We had a great time playing this game. Maybe you can play it at home with a few friends!

Enjoy:)

Multiplication Arrays, Valentine's Day Edition

Third graders have been exploring multiplication in math. We have been looking at multiplication in the many ways it can be expressed and visualized - as groups of objects, as groups of a number skip-counted on a number line, or as skip-counting on a hundreds chart, and recently we looked at multiplication represented as an array of objects.

On Valentine's Day, we used conversation hearts to demonstrate different multiplication arrays. In partners, students took turns rolling two dice and building an array that matched the numbers they rolled. They then determined the two multiplication sentences that could express the array they created.

Second Grade Travels Back in Time

The second grade students have embarked on their trip back in time to ancient Egypt! We started by asking what the students might think they already know about this amazing civilization, and it was wonderful to note that many of them shared things they had learned from last year's second grade class when they gave "Egypt Tours!"

Reading parts of Egypt in the Past and Present aloud, provided an overview of the big ideas that we will be covering throughout this study. Each student then received a new "Ancient Egypt Explorer's Notebook." This little book will give them a place to collect information and sketch when they learn something new!

Next, students picked a photograph of an artifact that they found intriguing. Using classroom resources and books children have brought from home, students are looking for clues to their artifact. Throughout this lengthy study, they will continue to gather information and present their findings on Egypt Night, March 20th.

One of our first projects was learning to write in hieroglyphs! Second Graders became scribes as they first practiced writing their name in this ancient picture writing and then made a cartouche with their "royal" name. Stop by and see them on display outside Danielle's classroom!

Fourth Grade Builds

The fourth grade has been immersed in their study of life in 18th century Philadelphia. They are deep into their research about the Colonial trades of the period. Each student has selected a trade that they are becoming the expert in for our classrooms. Their imaginations are soaring as they imagine what their own workshops and businesses would look and feel like. After sharing an image with the students of an entire life-size village built out of cardboard one snowy, freezing day they were inspired to take on building a large replica of a building from the 1700’s. Following a Google search for images, it was decided that Independence Hall would be a fun challenge because of all the architectural detail. Over the last few weeks, the building has taken shape during recess and choice times. The students are learning how to slow down and really see and examine the details that adorn the building. They are also being schooled in all the amazing things cardboard can do. There is a lot of measuring, cutting, shaping and gluing that has taken place. As the building and all its details have slowly risen the student's knowledge has grown. As they finish working on Independence Hall they are getting excited to start their own much smaller replicas of their very own workshops. Students will be sharing their knowledge of their trades and building talents at the Colonial Trade Fair on March 9th from 8:30 -11 am.

Recess: More than Just Play

An important part of our school day is recess.   Many of our recesses take place outside in our  natural play area, while others take place inside in our classrooms.  During our inside recesses, third graders enjoy playing  and working together to create projects.   Our classroom has a collection of Legos, blocks, cardboard, sport games, art material scraps, K'nex, word games, paint, rubber band looms, and a variety of different items that can be stacked, attached, or smushed together.  Students learn and practice the art of socializing and making friends as they design a city out of Lego and role play with them.  Other students develop their budding engineering skills to by experimenting with wood and blocks to make a marble run maze.  We feed off of each others' ideas and discover new ways to manipulate materials to get to a desired outcome. 

Students also learn to negotiate and compromise as they share resources and think about how to include others in meaningful ways.     There is also room to play or do something on your own, and third graders learn to think about whether they want recess to be a quiet time where they can recharge or to do something more active with classmates to gear up for our work periods.  Whatever it is third graders are doing, we're sure to be having a great time!

What makes a hero?

Our first graders have each chosen a hero to research. Many of them have qualities and characteristics in common that make them a hero. Here are their words that describe their heroes:

Brave, helpful, never gave up, helped other people, courageous, activist, a good dad, smart, adventure lover, dreamer, stood up for other people, determined, did not quit, curious, works hard, kind, helpful, talented, confident, world changer, creative, inspirational, community helper, trailblazer, stood up for what’s right, caring and looks out for animals, stood up for people and intelligent!

Needless to say, we have been inspired as they begin to present their heroes to one another.

Panda Research in Third Grade

Third grade researchers are becoming experts in understanding all aspects of the panda's development, life and conservation efforts, diet, body and information about bamboo and other facts of interest. Students read a variety of books that help them to access information about the panda. They utilize the features of nonfiction in the books that can help them locate and understand information such as the table of contents, glossary, index, headings and captions.

Students have read articles about the habitat of the panda and the panda's development that enable them to highlight important information and then to include that information in their informational charts. Using a variety of books and resources allow the student to find a variety of information about the panda- it is unusual that one book would have all of the information needed to truly understand the panda. There is also often the opportunity for students to share interesting facts that they have discovered. This allows other students to listen to a fact that they might not have found themselves. Once they have heard it from another student they can then read that same resource in order to understand the topic in a deeper way.

Ayudantes de la comunidad en 1º Grado – Community Helpers in 1st Grade

In connection with their social studies unit on Heroes, the first graders have been learning the Spanish vocabulary for some "Community Helpers." In their homeroom, the students have been studying the community of people they associate as being heroes, someone they look up to and/or admire.

In a large group during Spanish class, we began the conversation about héroes and how they are not just people who lived long ago or far away. Some héroes live in our own comunidad that we can refer to as Ayudantes de la comunidad (Community Helpers). There are many different ayudantes de la comunidad and each play an important and helpful role in each town and city.

We first read Roger Priddy’s book, “ABC of Jobs.” This was an introduction to the Spanish vocabulary for some of our ayudantes de la comunidad. Because in Spanish all nouns have either masculine or feminine gender for grammatical purposes, the students practiced using the definite article to distinguish between genders. For example:

el bombero, la bomera –  male firefighter, female firefighter

el veterinario, la veterinaria – male veterinarian, female veterinarian

el cocinero, la cocinera – male cook, female cook

el maestro, la maestra – male teacher, female teacher

el cartero, la cartera – male mail carrier, female mail carrier

el granjero, la granjera – male farmer, female farmer

We also discussed that the nouns that end with –o are usually masculine and those that end in –a are often feminine. But, there are times when this rule does not apply and only the definite article (el, la) is our clue whether a noun is masculine or feminine.  For example:

el policía, la policía – policeman, policewoman

el dentista, la dentista – male dentist, female dentist

After the read aloud, the first graders explored with large-sized clip art representing some of the professions that impact the lives of others. The faces of the characters in the props were cut out and a mirror was taped in its space. This way when the students looked at the characters, they could “see” themselves in the role. All the first graders laughed themselves silly as they looked into the mirror and took turns at taking on a role. Stay tuned, as we continue to explore with this topic in many fun and interactive ways.

Lower School Shapes

First grade has been enjoying our exploration of shapes. We have explored plane shapes like squares, circles and triangles and also solid shapes like cubes, cylinders, spheres and prisms.

Here are some photos of how many ways they we able to makes hexagons using triangles, rhombuses and trapezoids:

After reading City Shapes, students took a shapes walk around the Lower School with iPads and photographed images of the shapes they found. We made our own classroom book using photos from our shape walk and used descriptive language inspired by Diana Murray's beautiful picture book. 

Here are some examples of their writing from our shape walk:

I was walking down the lower school and I saw a dazzling triangle and it is beautiful and it is green. Thalen

I was walking all around the lower school. I saw a dazzling sphere. It was a sight! And, a marvelous cube. It was also a sight. Lily

When I was walking I saw a beautiful brown rectangle. It was a door.  Audrey

As I was walking through the lower school I saw a 3D circle. It was a globe. It was a sphere.  Jason

I was walking through the lower school. I saw a beautiful brown circle. It’s like a basket but it is not. Sydney

Here is our classroom graph of the objects they photographed:

 Of course, symmetry never gets old and during free choice first grade loves to create symmetrical designs with pattern blocks!