In addition to our Dr. Seuss celebration today (see previous post), we also got to celebrate Petey’s birthday today! We gave Petey a beautiful card that we made and we sang to him. We ate yummy Cheez-Its and drank orange juice and chocolate milk. Happy Birthday, Petey! We are so glad that you are a part of our classroom community.





View more photos from today in our March 1-5 Photo Gallery

It was such an exciting day at school today! Most of the whales wore their pajamas to school to celebrate Dr. Seuss Day.  Buddies from the Community School came to join in our school-wide celebration. There were five different activity centers set-up around the school.  Kinders and Preschoolers stayed in small groups with their buddies to rotate to the different activity centers every 20 minutes. In the Creative Play room our buddies read beloved Dr. Seuss books to us. We got to hear a lot of old favorites and even some Dr. Seuss stories that were new to us.

In the atelier Ms. Rachelle read Bartholomew and the Oobleck to us. Then we got to make our own oobleck by mixing corn starch, water, and green food coloring. It was fascinating to explore the properties of oobleck. Sometimes oobleck behaved like a solid and sometimes it behaved like a liquid.

In the Dolphins’ room we made green eggs and ham for snack and we decorated Dr. Seuss hats.

One of our activity centers was playing outside with our big buddies. Our last center was in the Sharks classroom. We got to play Dr. Seuss word games and a Cat in the Hat board game.

In the afternoon we got to snuggle down with blankets and pillows and watch Horton Hears a Who. 

View more photos from our celebration in our March 1-5 Photo Gallery

Each week every student takes home a bag full of books from our classroom library. Throughout the week we spend time enjoying these fiction and nonfiction books with family members. On Thursdays we return our book bags to school and have our book sharing circle.  In the sharing circle everyone has an opportunity to share a favorite book from the week.  Students give book recommendations to their friends and show specific parts of the story that they like.  Sometimes students share interesting facts that they learned from nonfiction books they read. Then students get to choose new books for their book bags for the upcoming week. Of course students frequently choose books that were recommended by their peers.  The book sharing circle encourages students to discuss favorite books and characters.  This is just one more way to help students share their excitement about reading.  We have a whole classroom full of readers!

View more photos from this week in our Feb 22-26 Photo Gallery

We have been collecting pennies for our Pennies for Peace drive. We are partnering with the Community School to raise money for schools in Pakistan. Collecting pennies has proved to be an authentic math activity. Each morning we count the pennies as we add them to the jar. Today we decided that it would save time to count the pennies by 10s instead of by 1s. Several students worked together to put the pennies in stacks of tens. Then we were able to count by tens to figure out that we brought in 357 pennies today. That’s $3.57!

Today we also spent time reading, drawing, writing, painting, building, playing, and collaborating. Ask your child what he/she worked on during classroom centers and creative play time today.

View more photos from today in our Feb 22-26 Photo Gallery