This month welcomed springtime weather, Miss Marisa’s birthday, and a visit from the Leprechauns! One of the biggest highlights of March 2025 was making Leprechaun traps and (almost!) catching those troublemakers! We spent the week before St. Patrick’s Day making different ‘traps’ in all of classes, hoping to snag these tricky little friends.
Although we didn’t capture any (yet!), it was fun to see their footprints in the bathroom (and the toilet!), across our tables, and through our traps/creations!
Monthly Highlights:
- Spring Pit & Children’s Lit — Our children’s book reading featured a special guest this month. . . our student’s uncle! Lily’s uncle, Eli Elbogen, is a published author! He wrote ‘The Day I Broke the Alphabet,‘ and we got to meet him and read his book to our group!
It was so fun to read something new AND get to meet the author in person, too!
“Gala” (Mondays + Wednesdays):
- Math & Reasoning: Almost everything this month was Leprechaun-themed, and our Gala class was no exception! We did a lot of ‘lucky-themed’ math activities and games, including some whole-group competitions with addition and subtraction. Other big focus areas for math were missing numbers and figuring out strategies to solve (and solve more independently), skip-counting, ordering numbers, and comparing numbers!
- Phonics, Spelling & ELA (English & Language Arts): For ELA, we used St. Patrick’s Day and Leprechauns as motivation to write creatively, in addition to our ‘silly’ spelling word stations. Because Leprechauns are always chasing rainbows, our rainbow writing this month was extra fun!
We also really engaged with STEM this month, engineering our own ideas for traps and houses! (See Vienna and Frances hard at work below! ↓ )
“Slice” (Mondays):
- English & Language Arts: Our Monday class continued with spelling, this month branching out into more independent activities: listening to oral sentences and writing them, self-correcting work, and sorting words by their vowel sounds!
We also worked on our writing, specifically looking at character and/or narrator actions and feelings, and how we can write them with more clarity. - Math & Reasoning: In math this month, we did a bunch of ‘Leprechaun-themed’ activities, (of course!) including shamrock coloring ft. 2 and 3-digit addition / subtraction, clover measuring, and ‘breaking the St. Patrick’s Day Math Code’ with different equations. Our students love themed activities, and this made math even more engaging!
“Honeycrisp” (Tuesdays):
- English & Language Arts: This month we finished up a narrative unit by writing about friendships. Then, we dove into ‘How-To’ Writing, learning the steps for teaching and/or writing commands! We also tested our student’s writing skills at the beginning of this unit by having them write the steps for “How To Make A PB&J.” This was so fun because as easy as these steps may seem, our students quickly realized how specific they need to write. . . otherwise, saying ‘spread on peanut butter’ may mean the person spreads the PB on the plate instead of the bread! 😛Other ELA activities this month were focusing on subject-predicates, and comparative/superlatives.
- Math & Reasoning: For math, (outside of our multiplication and division units) was, of course, dedicated to everything Leprechaun and lucky-themed! We did some Clover ‘Solve & Color’ sheets, worked on Leprechaun codes, and also dove into fact families for multiplication and division to help as problems increased in complexity!
“Slice” (Wednesdays):
- Focus Area #1 – Hydraulics: This month we did a little dive into hydraulics! We learned how things can be powered by water, and watched a video clip of how this is used in machines and factories. Then, we emulated this with a hands-on project, with a water-powered dinosaur! The dinosaur had a reserve of water, and the water pushing through the ‘straws’ attached to his arms and legs made him move! So neat!
- Focus Area #2 – Snap Circuits: Our group also explored circuits this month, by getting hands-on and creating different circuit options. We worked individually and as a group to turn on lights, program small signs, and even power a fan!
- Focus Area #3 – Celtic Knots: In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, we explored the origin of the holiday, which included learning about the traditional Celtic knots. Then we made our own ‘knots’ with paper for a fun, hands-on craft! (And we made Leprechaun traps, too, of course!) ☘️
“Slice” (Thursdays):
- Morning “Slice”: This month we continued with Reading Comprehension and Math Stations, but with a focus on everything ‘lucky’! Our big math stations of the month were ‘Money Pots,’ where students had to calculate and compare different amounts in their ‘pots of gold,’ ‘Rainbow Subtraction’ (3-digit subtraction involving ‘lucky’ rainbows), and ‘Clover Skip-Counting.’
- STEM: Our focus for March 2025 was magnets and understanding how they work, what they attract, and what materials are conductors. We did a few hands-on experiments, including testing out different materials and determining what materials are magnetic or not (and why). We also (of course!) built our Leprechaun traps. . . and some students even added magnets/magnetic materials to their traps to incorporate their learning into their creations! How fun!
- Social Studies: March was all about folktales and exploring not only what those are but how we can write our own! We learned about two famous women, Annie Oakley and Calamity Jane, and read silly stories about their lives. To complete the unit, we did a “Roll & Write” activity where the students’ dice rolls determined their characters, setting, conflict, and resolutions of their silly tall tales!
Other March 2025 Updates:
- ‘Find Your Fur-Leaf Clover!‘— This month Miss Marisa hosted her first ever dog adoption event, and some students came out to support! It was so special seeing the excitement of students seeing their teacher out of class (and vice versa). We are always grateful for the parental support & community! [You can see the recap of the event here!]
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