Bringing Joy: Service Learning

Here we go Looby-Lou

The Hokey Pokey!

 Our first visit to the Early Childhood Center was enjoyed by all of the children.  We definitely met our Learning Target:  I can bring JOY.
We are learning the rewards of sharing our time and talents with others.  We worked on our patience, collaboration, and communication!

Drumming on our bodies

New buddies!

Morning Greeting: Dancing!

Gentle leading...

We brought the JOY!

Reading Tool #3: The Power Tool, Rereading

To introduce the reading tools to my children, I put on a tool belt full of different tools: a hammer, wrench, screwdriver, and a drill.

We talk about how we need more than one tool to try when we get to a tricky work while reading.  We need different tools for different words.

They know that I call Rereading the power tool.  It usually works every time.  When we get to a tricky word we start the first part of the word, we look at the picture, then we go back to reread the sentence with fluency to think about what would make sense, look right, and sound right. 

See the video clip below!

Reading Tool #2 Book Walking

Before we read a new book we take the time to read the title, look at each picture in detail, noticing the characters feelings and what is going on in the story.  This is an amazing tool and I call it a "book walk". 

  As we look at the pictures and talk about the book we often use the same words and story language that the author wrote.  This makes reading the book easier for a beginning reader.  Check out the video clip below!

Visiting with a Master Gardener

Mr. Leo 

We learned about different kinds of kale...a popular vegetable today!

What do you think this is?

 Ms. Zina is our amazing cafeteria director.  Together with her husband Leo, they grow amazing fruits and vegetables, raise turkeys and bees, and have so much information about our CO soil. We were so grateful for the opportunity to learn from them.
This spring we will put our learning into practice as we plant some things in the school garden for our Expedition work.

Eating honey and zucchini bread!

Learning Targets

1. What are the plants that we get our food from look like?

We saw: Corn, onions, eggplant, lettuce, cabbage, carrots, squash, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, potatoes,and more.

2. Why do they like to grow here in Colorado? Why some other foods don't?

3. When do we pick out food crops?

4. How long does it take for our plants to grow before we can harvest them?

5.  When do we plant the seeds?
6.  Where does honey come from?
7.  What do we do to help plants grow?

Service Learning: Early Childhood Center Buddies

I am so excited to unroll our Service Learning Project with you!
We will buddy up with a class of preschoolers next door at the Early Childhood Center.  

You might be asking Why?  How? When? 

Here is the how and when.  Almost every month we will visit the school next door from 9:30-10:30 a.m.  I will pair up the children from my crew. Each team will have one preschool buddy to work with all year long.  We will begin this project on Thursday, September 25.  

There are multiple reasons for the why.
1.  Service Learning is a core practice of an Expeditionary Learning School.  We strive to grow children into kind, caring adults who make a difference in their communities.
2.  I have a serving heart which I acquired from my late mother.
She taught me the joy and benefits of giving myself to others.
I learned that you get as much back as you give out, if not more.
I want everyone to know and experience this joy!

My plans include the following.
Enduring Understanding:  Parts Impact the Whole
Essential Questions:  How does the role of teaching inspire a child in their own learning?  How does collaboration with the preschool affect our learning community as a whole? 

Stay tuned for pictures and details of our first meeting!
We will be practicing all of the 4 C's in this experience.
They are a part of our every day learning as part of DCSD.
The 4 C's include Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication, and Creativity.

READING TOOLS

Dear Parents,
This is the first of a series of lessons on how to help your child read at home.  With our busy lives I thought it might help for me to upload video clips of the reading tools I teach the children. 

Using the same language and tools at home and at school really help move a child along in reading and writing. Let me know if these are helpful to you.

Tool # 1:  Using our schema helps us read

Schema:  Our background knowledge!
Each of us has a file cabinet in our brain.  We have files of things we know about inside the cabinet.  (a 6yr. old might have files about their  family, pets, things about animals, going on vacations, etc.)

When we read, we use our schema before, during, and after we read to help us understand stories and learn new schema!
Bringing what we know to the table helps us predict and think about what we are reading.

And yes, 6 year olds can understand and use the term schema! 

There's No Replacing a Good Book!

Friday's Guest:  A Visit from the Public Library!

Ms. Laura from Phillip S. Miller

If your child bugged you about going to the library this weekend it is all my fault and I'm happy about it!

The children are so jazzed about the library books I bring in each week.  The books have really helped me jump-start the reading in our crew this year.

I wanted to inspire them and motivate them to get their own library cards and learn about the great things that are available to them.  They were so shocked that the library card is "FREE!"  

Along with the books, books on tape and CD-ROMs, and movies, we learned about something cool that can be checked out for 3 weeks like a book.  It is called a "play away" and it has a book on tape but is small like an I-pad.

They provide the batteries and everything!  Very cool! 

We also found out that Phillip S. Miller has a library do that comes in to be read to....AND (drum roll please)  a Lego day which is coming up!  

Monday they will be bringing home a library card application.

Hope you can find time to take your child to the library very soon!

Learning to Count Efficiently

As a crew we are doing lots of counting.  We choral count each day, forward and back by one's, starting at different numbers.  We practice counting forward by 2's and 5's to 100.  

One project we have worked on is learning how to count large collections.  As we work on this, we are realizing that counting by 5's or 10's can be much more efficient than counting by 1's or 2's.