Week 5 Week 5 Week 5!!

Week 5 sure was sweet for us in the 1/2 classroom.

On Wednesday Popcorn emerged from her chrysalis and on Thursday we released her into the garden at County Farm Park!! Before she was released, I asked students to share a wish they had for her and the answers were so sweet. Most wished for her to live a long Monarch life, others wished for her to lay lots of eggs near us, and a couple wished Popcorn a safe journey during her migration south. Enjoy the video of our releasing of Popcorn:

For our identity unit, we focused on Families. For this, we read the books Families, A Family is a Family is a Family, Heather Has Two Mommies, My Papi Has a Motorcycle, and Love Remains: A Rosh Hashanah Story of Transformation.

The week began just discussing what family means to us. We talked about what each of our families looked like and noticed similarities and differences between us and the family makeups in our classroom. We also talked about the main ingredients to a family is love and acceptance. We read Families and A family is a Family is a Family together and thought about what made our own families unique and special. Students then drew family portraits (as seen on Seesaw) and built a sentence based on the sentence frame, "My Family is...". Enjoy some examples below:

At mid-week, we read Heather has Two Mommies. While reading this, we again focused on how every family looks different, but also have many things in common. As we read this story, I had the students raise their hands when Heather was doing something with her moms that they also do with their family. They kept track of this throughout the reading and at the end were asked to write/draw one similarity and one difference they had with Heather's family. On Thursday, we read My Papi Rides a Motorcycle. While reading this book we discussed spending quality time with our family and the different things we do with them that brings us joy.

We wrapped up our week reading a story called Love Remains: A Rosh Hashanah Story of Transformation in celebration of the Jewish holiday, as well as expanding our idea of family, love, and acceptance. The story documents a journey of a trans boy (Dan), his family, and their years of celebrating Rosh Hashanah together. In the story, as in life, there are many changes in their lives, but the beautiful constant of love and acceptance remains. This story perfectly encapsulated our definition of family and it was beautiful to connect what we learned last week about gender identity and this week's lessons on what a family is. A special thank you (and shana tova) to Rachel Goldberg for allowing us to borrow this book!!

Enjoy some slideshows below from our week (outdoor math, CFP shenanigans, rock and fossil hunts, and squiggle writing):