We spent most of the beginning of the week getting ready for our friendship feast! We made invitations for our families including all of the details of the feast and an illustration of the feast and then we took them home.
Mrs. Gore's friends taught us the songs for the feast and we went to their class a couple times to practice together.
We also worked on our leaf creations. The kids picked out a leaf and used metallic sharpies to illustrate friendship in some way on their leaf. Some drew hearts, peace signs, or different designs that represent friendship to them. We also talked about what it means to be a good friend and they wrote about it underneath their leaf as well.
We picked green onions and carrots from our garden in order to make some food for our feast. We used them in our french onion vegetable dip and our salad. I also brought in a mix and sour cream for our dip as well as spinach, lettuce, and tomatoes for our salad. After we picked the vegetables we washed them off and the students helped us cut them up. Then we mixed all of the ingredients together and they both turned out very yummy!
Our art teacher Mrs. Pinto helped us make the sign that was above the door and said "Welcome Friends". She had every student from each of our 3 classes put their hand print around the outside border of the paper. Mrs. Atkin's friends painted the words in the middle of the sign as well as the "Friendship Feast" sign. We made centerpieces for the middle of the tables that said "Give Thanks". Our leaf creations were displayed around the gym as well. Mrs. Gore's class made a friendship quilt pictured below as well.
The kids sang two songs, sat and talked with friends and we ate some delicious food. Everyone seemed to have a great time and we were very pleased with the turn out!
Dr. Clifford stopped by to show his support as well!
Here are some pictures of some the kids in our class and their families enjoying the food and company of their friends.
The day after the feast we decided to have another feast with Mrs. Atkin & Mrs. Gore's friends for the children who weren't able to make it Wednesday night and we had a lot of left overs! We all gathered in Mrs. Gore's room and sat on the floor. The children really enjoyed this! I even had one child who wasn't able to make it on Wednesday night tell me, "Thank you Mrs. Garrabrant for having another feast for us so I can come!"
After the feast, we displayed their friendship leaf creations out on our bulletin board along with documentation sheets that I put together of how we prepared for our friendship feast. We also made thank you notes and signed them for our custodians and lunch lady who worked so hard to help us make the feast possible to show them how much we appreciated their hard work!!
This week we also started our new "I Wonder" choice time. We set up different work areas dealing with our study on Ohio animals and the children got to choose which area they would like to explore further. Once everyone gets a chance to explore each area once, they may choose to go back and explore an area for a second time. Below are the areas we have set up right now for them to explore.
In the Exploration Journal area, they are illustrating and writing about different animals in their journals.
In our animal webcam area, we have found animal webcams for different animals. We have been watching to see if we can see any animals on them and so far we have seen birds and squirrels. We talked about how we have to be patient and wait for the animals to come since the web cam is showing live shots and not recorded pictures. The picture below and to the right is a picture that I took before school on Thursday from a deer cam and there were three deer in the webcam shots!! When we came in the classroom from unpacking our things however, they were gone! We will continue to look for animals this week. We have been looking for eagles, owls, birds, squirrels, raccoons, foxes, bats, etc. In this area, they are observing the animal webcams, either on my desktop computer or on the ipad and documenting what they are seeing in their exploration journals.
Below left: In the art area they are using different materials such as torn paper, leaves, markers, colored pencils, crayons, glue, yarn, scrap paper, etc to make different animals in the art area.
Below right: In the library area, students are observing animal books and magazines and talking to their friends about what they are learning.
In the engineering area, students are creating animal habitats using different materials such as sticks, rocks, shells, pine cones, wood pieces and then they are documenting about it. They have been creating snake cages, crab houses, squirrel homes and many more!
We have been learning about maps and how to look at them. The children are investigating different state park maps and discussing where animals might live there as well as looking at a zoo map at all of the animals that live there.
We have been talking about the different between living things and non-living things. In this area children are looking at different pictures and sorting them into two columns, living and non-living.
As you may have heard your child talking about Friday when they came home from school, we had a visitor come to our classroom! Our friend Alivia and her family have rescued an injured squirrel and have kept it as a pet. We discussed how this was an unusual pet and how it wasn't safe to go outside to catch squirrels either. This was a special case because the squirrel, Winks had broken and lost a toe and was therefore unable to climb trees. Alivia's family saved the squirrel and it lives in their house now. Since squirrels are naturally wild animals, when they brought it in it had to stay in the carrier but the children were fascinated! They had so many questions for Alivia's mom about Winks like where does she sleep, how and what does she eat, what noises does she make, does she have sharp teeth and claws, does it run around the house, and many more! Each child got a chance to look inside the carrier and observe Winks and what she looked like.
After the visit, we documented Winks in our exploration journals and wrote about it as well. Here are some of the students documentations.
We also finished reading the book Charlotte's Web this week. This coming week we will sequence the events in the story as well as watch the movie to compare and contrast with the book. We will continue to explore our animal study this coming week as well.
Remember we have a short week this week and only have school Monday and Tuesday. Have a great week!
Mrs. Brittany Garrabrant
