Recapping November 2022: 🦃
Buoyancy, boat-building, turkeys, and fairy gardens! 🧚Oh my! From STEM experiments in the kiddie pool to building a secret society in the back yard, this November has been busy, creative, and filled with hands-on fun. Here is a recap of the highlights – or you can DOWNLOAD + PRINT THE FULL VERSION HERE: [November 2022 Newsletter].
Monthly Highlights:
- BOAT-BUILDING: It was fun to get hands-on with our learning about buoyancy and states of matter! The kids got to engineer their own boats and test them on water!
- FAIRY GARDEN: After cleaning out the back ‘garden’ area of the yard, the kids were quick to build a little ‘Secret Society’ named ‘Fairyville.’ They each have roles/jobs, titles, new names, and a structure to their daily happenings. It was cool to see how creative they were in the space and with each other!
What We’re Up To In Math:
- Ordering numbers from least to greatest and greatest to least
- Comparing numbers to determine what’s bigger or smaller
- Sorting numbers (odd vs. even)
- Counting by 2’s, 5s, 10’s (and seeing what’s one more/one less or ten more/ten less)
- Recognizing number patterns to help solve complex problems or word problems
- Place value and identifying (as well as labeling) the ones, tens, and hundreds place!
- Add/Subtracting (and solving multi-digit problems in the afternoon!)
What We’re Up To In Science:
November was all about engineering & investigating with our boats and other mini-labs. We made hypotheses, engineered, tested, and then discussed our results post-experiment!
- Life Cycles: In conjunction with our Thanksgiving study, we’re learning about turkey life-cycles, stages, habitats, and development.
- Pumpkin Science: We cut up some pumpkins and compared/contrasted them (both insides and outsides) to apples in a hands-on ‘mini-lab.’
- ‘What Floats Your Boat?’ STEM Experiment: Students were able to be engineers and create their own boat hypotheses, designs. . . and test their creations in our ‘mini-pool!’ We talked about what materials were more effective than others for buoyancy and we also timed each boat to see how long it could float!
Here are more images from our labs! ↓
What We’re Up To In Language Arts:
COMPLEX SENTENCES + EDITING
This month we’ve been working on sentence structure and learning how to build more complex sentences (and paragraphs) by segmenting, looking at sentence parts, and adding “juicy” details (adjectives).
We are also practicing our self-edits and checking for capitals, punctuation, and “juicy” words in our writing.
READING + WRITING
We’re reading short passages together and learning to pick out important facts (developing the skills for researching).
We also have “DEAR” (Drop Everything And Read) Time daily where students are given level-appropriate books to explore, sound out words, use context clues, and independently read! I use this time to pull them aside for out-loud fluency practice!
What We’re Up To In Social Studies:
This month we learned more about the Philippines & our afternoon students built a Philippine Star & coral reef project!
We did quite a few interactive map color-coding activities also talked about the origins of Thanksgiving, including different groups, cultures, & traditions compared to what we celebrate today!
Other November 2022 Updates:
It’s crazy to think that in just a few short weeks, we’ll be in December! Our days have been busy, so we haven’t done as much of our “High, Low, Buffalo” tradition — ‘High’ is a happy moment, ‘Low’ is a bad moment, and ‘Buffalo’ is a random moment — but here are a few for November 2022:
- High: Cookie Treats. Everyone raved over the cookie treats for Winslow’s birthday! Yum. Plus, they came on the perfect day (since our fieldtrip treats didn’t pan out).
- Low: Lumpia: Unfortunately, the restaurant I wanted to order Filipino food from canceled my order! So, we weren’t able to ‘travel’ to the Philippines (yet).
- Buffalo: Turkeys: We were ALL surprised to learn that turkeys can fly! In our turkey unit, we learned about turkeys and their life cycles, habits, diets, and noises they make. We even did some research about them! Gobble gobble!
Spotlight Students:
Each month we celebrate a student (or students) who are doing exceptional academic work and/or been outstanding in terms of behavior, attitude, or empathy towards others.
This month we’re celebrating Willy Letts, for not only going above and beyond with homework, but also being a good friend to his peers! Willy is always asking his friends to play, sharing, or taking turns.
Thank you, Willy, for helping everyone feel included!
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You can also download the full November 2022 Newsletter [RIGHT HERE].
