Our weeks continue to fly by and we continue to grow and learn from one another. Fall is officially here and the Cottontails are excited to learn about the changing seasons. This past week we began studying answers to the question why do seasons change. Using our globe and our own bodies, we studied the earth's trip around the sun and how this journey affects our changing seasons. Our birthday girl, Margaret, was excited to be the sun while Aidan and Stella helped Earth rotate and travel (or "orbit" we discovered). We learned that our specific location on Earth determines the variety of weather we experience. Friends in southern California or Mexico do not experience the change of seasons like we do. We were surprised to learn that the weather in the southern hemisphere is on an opposite schedule from our own weather. In the coming weeks, we will continue to focus on why seasons change as we begin to observe the changing weather patterns in our own community. Our trips to the library, Wilson's and Sass will prove to provide us with opportunities to see and feel the changing weather. At school, through our Literacy time, we will read a variety of fiction and nonfiction books describing the beauty of fall.
As we've learned, Fall brings beautiful sunny days with cooler temperatures. We are enjoying these temperatures as we run and play at recess time. It has been fun to watch the K-6 friends invent and play new recess games together. The Cottontails really enjoy this time with their older friends. It is a wonderful sight as our older friends embrace their role as mentor. In addition, to our school wide games, the Cottontails are getting stronger and stronger in their climbing and exploring skills. Comments likes, "I can do it!" and "Look, I persevered!" are being used all over the playground. It is fun to watch our friends climb high and spin fast. The Spikas have become a new favorite where Cottontails pretend to be famous ballerinas and figure skaters as they create elaborate spins around the Spikas.
We stay busy inside the classroom, too. Centers continue to be a great time to work, play, and learn from each other. Our Art Cart and Writing Station has become a popular choice during this time. With four birthdays in one week, we were busy Cottontails making birthday cards for our friends. It has been a great joy watching the class work together to make beautiful cards. What makes this activity so spectacular is the fact that it was their choice to use their words and drawings to create these wonderful birthday gifts. Sayan and Jimin have done a wonderful job showing our friends that they can use our classroom walls as writing resources. Nina, Maggie, and Rosie like using the Word Wall and birthday presents to help with the spellings of their friends' names.
In Guided Reading, our Frog & Toad group meets a couple times of week to read realistic fiction titled Long Ago and Today. Long Ago and Today is about boy and his great-grandma. It is amazing to read about Great-Grandma's life and how different it was. It is also fun to look at the similarities in the two characters' lives, too. The Frog & Toad group has also focused their time to understand the use and differences between a question mark and a period. They have also gone on word hunts for L-family blends like fly, black, clap, glad, play, and slug.
We continue to grow excited for each new activity that is added to our daily schedule week by week. Our spelling time has become a great routine, full of interactive chatter and letter sound study. I can tell that the Cottontails have been continuing their word study practice at home. We were eager to sort and glue our pictures into our new spelling notebooks last week. I am already amazed at the large growth in letter sound identification. Throughout our entire day students are discovering words that start with our focused letter sounds. Our letter sound studies have gone beyond the school day, too! At the Harvest Fest, Rosie wanted me to guess the name of her preschool class from last year. After repeated attempts she finally told me that I needed a hint. She said, "Ms. Michelle, it starts with mmmmm just like your name". Sure enough, she was right! Our friend was a Marblewing last year. Way to go!
Speaking of the Harvest Fest, thank you so much for coming out to Willowwind for an afternoon of fun. It was great to see your wonderful family. I was so proud of the Cottontails (and all of our K-6 friends) for their amazing job with our Prairie Play. Many Cottontail parents shared with me the excitement the Cottontails had for our play leading up to our Harvest Fest event. i know that we have already learned so much about tallgrass prairies. We hope our play helped you learn a bit about the creation of tallgrass prairies in Iowa. We are excited to continue our prairie curriculum and prairie research as we plan to restore part of Willowwind's campus. Also, thank you, thank you, thank you for your support at the Harvest Fest. The Book Walk was a huge success, the set up and clean up throughout the entire Harvest Fest went so smoothly and the food was absolutely amazing. Thank you for sharing your time and your favorite foods with us!
Did you know?!?! A crazy mystery was solved thanks to the Harvest Fest! Willowwind students have been puzzled by the arrival of an ever growing squash vine outside the K-2 Project Room. Although we have enjoyed watching the vine and squash fruit evolve over the last six weeks the mystery of how it got there remained. On Monday, Ms. Brooke helped us conclude that our squash vine is perhaps the result of the last year's Harvest Fest's Squash Bowling. After Sunday, there were seeds everywhere! Surely, one of the seeds from last year's Harvest Fest took root and planted itself right in our rock bed. Ezra, Lucas, Jimin, Sayan, and Rayne were excited to pick up the seeds from this year's Squash Bowling station. They have great plans to plant these seeds to see if they can perhaps grow into another beautiful vine. We shall see…
Don't Forget!
We will be traveling to the library THIS Friday. Please see that your child has their library card with them. We are excited to select books to check out and take home!
Also, NEXT Monday we will be traveling to Wilson's Apple Orchard. DRIVERS ARE STILL NEEDED. Please let me know if you are interested in joining us. Don't forget to leave your child's booster seat here at Willowwind on Monday.
Please make sure I receive your family's $10 for our trip to the orchard and the farm. Please send your family's $10 to me directly. Thanks!
I have talked with the ICFD Captain and we have scheduled our trip to the fire department for Tuesday, October 11th from 10:00 - 1:30. We will take the Towncrest bus downtown, and I will be in need of one or two parents to travel along with us. Please let me know if you are interested. In addition to our trip to the fire department, if the weather cooperates, we will eat lunch downtown and play on the library's play structure.
Lastly, we will be consistently cleaning our our book bags as our reading collection grows. When we are done with a black & white book we will place a sticker in the corner of the cover. This will tell you and your family that these books can remain at home and no longer need to travel back and forth to school. We will also try and rotate our paperback books on a weekly/biweekly schedule.
Thanks for all you do!
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