Love was in the air this month! February 2024 was filled with Valentines Day activities, writing, celebrations, and even a goodie exchange. Alongside, of course, some experiments, a fieldtrip to the EcoVivarium (reptile sanctuary), and in-depth learning about politics and government.
Monthly Highlights:
- Valentine’s Day Party – Who doesn’t love a good party?! Our Valentine’s Day party was a big success, especially because we got to do a gift/goodie exchange that everyone was super excited about! There’s something awesome about taking turns and seeing all the cool things your peers are giving/getting.
- EcoVivarium – Our big fieldtrip this month was to The EcoVivarium (reptile sanctuary). To piggy back on the learning we’ve been doing about reptiles and amphibians, this was a great way to add a hands-on component to our learning. Plus, it was a museum that no one in our class had been to yet, and every ticket purchase went to a good cause!
- “Pit & Children’s Lit” – We continued our monthly events with another reading at OB Beans! This was our second one, and it was a great turnout! We’re so excited to continue to share these (free!) events with the community and share our passion for books, dogs, and coffee (in that order).
Mondays:
- English & Language Arts: A big focus of our ELA this month is on linking verbs and identifying what they look/sound/feel like in our sentences. We worked on a large verb packet, shared our stories out loud (to practice public speaking!), and even did ‘pizza writing,’ which is on display in our classroom. The end of this month began our new unit on workers in the community and learning about different people’s jobs/roles.
- Math & Reasoning: For math, we’ve been pouring our hearts into learning higher-level skills, including understanding place value, repeated addition, and mastering our ‘borrowing’ and ‘carrying’ rules for 2-digit addition and subtraction. And, as always, our math competitions are fierce & fun!
Tuesdays:
- English & Language Arts: February 2024 in our Tuesday group was all about looking at different types of literature—poetry, realistic fiction and persuasive writing—and comparing / contrasting them. Another big focus is looking at what’s fact vs. opinion in writing. Not only did we do many stations about this (identifying what was an opinion vs. fact in individual sentences) but we also investigated different writing samples and started working on our own.
- Math & Reasoning: Math was primarily focused on adding/subtracting 2 and 3-digit numbers on an open number line. This can be confusing and a bit complex at times, but the idea is to create visual representations of math for students to have other means of solving problems in their ‘tool boxes.’
Wednesdays & Thursdays:
- Foundations: In our Foundational Class, we did two weeks of engaging crossword activities, where we learned about different tricky spelling/sound patterns (first starting with our ‘Bossy Rs’ – or, ur, er, ir, and ar) and did different spelling, reading, writing, and searching activities with them! We also worked on homophones this month, did some V-Day writing/mad libs, and practiced fractions, too!
- Social Studies: In Social Studies this month, we learned all about the Bill of Rights and its importance in our lives. To help us comprehend this further, we created our own classroom ‘Bill of Rights,’ and discussed different roles we have as citizens (both in the classroom and in everyday life). Another one of our citizens activities was to create a robust ‘Citizens Flip Book’ and connecting classroom poster of our roles, responsibilities, and rights, which was a lot of fun! We also learned about different slogans that people might use for a campaign or election to help us get ready for our class elections in April.
- STEM: In STEM this month, we did a penny experiment in tandem with our Social Studies learning to understand why the Statue of Liberty is green when it’s supposed to be copper! We also finished up our weathering/erosion with a culminating Sand Castle Erosion Experiment where the goal was keeping our castles from eroding when water was added to our (heart-shaped!) pans. This month we also talked about animal needs and habitats (in nature or in home), and to prepare for our fieldtrip, studied bearded dragons, snakes, alligators, turtles, and lizards! Finally, we did a fun reading/writing/art project with a book ‘Verdi,’ about a snake who can’t wait to grow up.
Other February 2024 Updates:
- The ‘Feed Me Good Things’ Box: During our Valentine’s Day party, we took time to create personalized v-day boxes for holding our cards and gifts! Miss Marisa created one, too, out of an old tissue box with eyes and a happy mouth. . . and it’s since become the ‘compliment box’ where students can put in positive notes about classmates! Every so often, a rando note (or two) can be picked and shared anonymously with the class to continue to build community, connection, and a positive classroom environment!
- PS: You can find more of our updates by bookmarking our Microschool Page, connecting with our Parent Page, and subscribing to our newsletter (below!).
