Our second week back to school was a success. We continued to build our community up and are quickly becoming comfortable with one another.
This week, we began to explore our identities and the identities of others by focusing on names. Names are so connected to who we are as people and I wanted us to open up conversation around the importance. We read the books Thunder Boy, Jr., Name Jar, Teach Us Your Name, and Chrysanthemum with the focus on our Teaching Tolerance's Social Justice Standard “I can feel good about myself without being mean or making other people feel bad.” While reading, we paid close attention to how others in the books reacted to names they were unfamiliar with and dug a bit deeper on how we think people in countries that speak other languages would react to our names and how that might make us feel.
I also believe names should be plastered ALL OVER the classroom - so students created their names and decorated them in ways that are true to who they are. We hung these up as a border around the classroom to remind them that this space is theirs, made for them and by them. (You can see the photos below - some images are in slideshows... click the arrow to see all of them!!):
During our project time, we spent time documenting the changes that Doughnut has made and DUN DUN DUN they are in a chrysalis!!! I walked into the classroom on Monday morning and Doughnut was a caterpillar… about 10-15 minutes later I went to check on it and it formed a chrysalis on the bottom of our container!! After some research, we decided to hang it using dental floss and Doughnut is THRIVING.
Dayton’s family brought in a little caterpillar that the class has named Popcorn (I’m telling you, we have a food-based theme) and Popcorn has grown so much throughout the week. On Monday, Popcorn was ½ inch long … after measuring today Popcorn is now 1 ¼ inch long!
Math time has slowly begun to develop and oooo we are having some fun. We begin our time together with number talks to build number sense together and afterwards we read a math book. Over the last couple of days have been playing a game called STUDENTS VS TEACHER. I have to say, I’m doing pretty well, but they are catching up to me big time. Ask them to explain the game to you!! It’s tons of fun.
Overall, this week has been so nice and I’m loving the community we’ve been able to build together in such a short time. Enjoy your weekend and enjoy some photos below: