On Wednesday, we had our first Writer's Workshop session and learned that we will become fantastic authors this year! First, we did a guided discovery on how we use and take care of our special writing utensils (felt tip pens). Then, we had private think time where we quietly thought of a story we wanted to write about. After, we shared with a partner what our story was going to be about. We were finally ready to go to the tables and begin writing our story (through pictures)! During this work time, I noticed all the children were engaged and excited about sharing their stories through pictures. After, we had a share session where I shared one of the children's stories to the class.
Every year on September 15th, educators around the world have been celebrating National Dot Day by making some time to encourage their students creativity. So, we read the book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds who shares a story about a little girl, Vashti, who is encouraged by her teacher to "make her mark" and discover that she truly can be an artist. This is the beginning of Vashti's journey of surprise and self-discovery.
After reading the story, the children were feeling ready, brave, and expressive to make their mark and see where it takes them on paper using Do-A-Dot Markers. The children did an amazing job creating their dot pictures!
This week in math, we were introduced to Work Places. Work Places provide activities and/or games that are engaging and relevant to what we are learning in the classroom. They are also designed to be used independently. Pattern blocks, unifix cubes, polydrons, and geoboards were all introduced this past week. Although the children will be exploring with these materials for the next couple of weeks, they will also be working on facilitating inventing, creating, communicating, sorting, counting, and community building skills.
After reading the book Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes, we had a discussion about the importance of appreciating the uniqueness of each other's names. In the story, we learned that Chrysanthemum (a girl mouse in the story) had 13 letters in her name! So, we wanted to see how many letters were in our names, which brought us to making a graph on the board. 
Then, we practiced making "I noticed" statements. We noticed that there were more children who had 4 letters in their name than any other number. 
We also graphed what our favorite Gingerbread Man book was on the board. Again, we made "I noticed" statements and we learned that 11 children liked The Gingerbread Girl! After, we transferred the data onto our own individual graph to bring home to share with you. Ask your child what their favorite book was.
On Thursday, I introduced the children to the SMARTBOARD. The SMARTBOARD is an interactive screen that allows us to do some really neat activities on it. Since this was the children's first interaction with the SMARTBOARD, all I had them do was write their names on it.
They thought this was the coolest thing ever! Then, we used the SMARTBOARD to watch a short video about the Life Cycle of a Butterfly. 
On Thursday, we had noticed one of our monarch caterpillars was hanging upside down in the letter J. We were hoping to watch it form into its chrysalis throughout the day. However, it was very stubborn and waited until we had left. When I came in this weekend, I noticed that the other caterpillar had just finished forming it's chrysalis as I watched it wiggle inside. 
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