Alphas come back with abandon…
What a whirlwind of a week! We started it with a gallery-walk of the nature creations. Everyone had such interesting ideas.We had sea shell art, a mosaic of Autumn leaves, a Thanksgiving Tree made of leaf rubbings and gratitudes written on the back, a mobile-chime made of painted sticks…and so much more that will be on display during our Portfolios on Parade day.
Projects…
This week, Alphas looked at different ways artists paint…
Our Mural
We pondered how one might go about making a mural. “It would take a long time…” “It could be dangerous…” “Maybe you could get your family to help you. We talked about making an Alpha Mural that reflected our community. We read a book called “The Big Orange Splot,” about a community that had to deal with issues involving personal expression and community unity.
Each Alpha made a house out of shapes. They were identical “little boxes-on-the-hillside…” We talked about whether they used more skill or imagination to make those houses. It took several math-skills and patience to get the pieces exactly right. We were so proud of our neat and tidy houses…just like the people in the book loved their “neat street.” AND just like what happened to one character in the book, a dreadful accident befell our Alphas…Ms. Hannah had an accident with our orange tempra paint and got orange splots ALL over our Alphas’ neat houses… When this happened to Mr. Plumbean in the story, he stared at his orange splot for a long time before doing anything and eventually all Mr. Plumbean’s neighbors came over and drank lemonade with him talking long into the night about their dreams before they did anything to their houses…So, the next day, the Alphas had a little peppermint tea party at their tables…they talked with their table-mates about what the orange splots inspired them to do to their houses…then they got busy!
Bodhi gets beautiful texture with his paintbrush!
Jack turned his “splot” into the sun and the roof into a puffy-cloud sky…
Alphas wrote about their inspirations. “My house is a haunted house…” “My house is a circus tent…”
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Then Alpha’s talked about the environment in which we wanted to install our houses. They came up with “Day and Night.”
Alphas working together, make short work of filling up a very long sheet of paper!
It was a team effort for our class to share paper-space, but they did it! They negotiated, compromised and used a lot of flexibility!
Practice…
This week, Alphas thought a lot about “Theme.” We talked about it in art:”What is Diego Rivera trying to say in the mural of painters painting a mural?”… in our reading “What do you think the theme is in the book “Snowballs?” and in our math, “The number of the day is…”
We practiced our de-coding skills this week by listing words, listening for similarities, sorting them into groups and looking for spelling patterns. When we approach learning this way, we are employing inductive thinking strategies.
It is a way of scaffolding information to allow students to start with what they know and move them to analyze data, find patterns and think critically about the world around them.
Here, Alphas create lists of soft and hard “C” and “G” words…
Alphas create a “rule” to help them decide how the letter C should sound. They found a vowel-neighbor-pattern in each hard or soft sounding C word! “C sounds like “S” when an “E “or an “I” comes after it…”
We practiced thinking algebraically this week by considering all the different ways quantities can be created. Some students played with a multi-digit number in a myriad of ways…
Some students had to figure out 3 number combinations that would add up to a particular quantity…
“I have 9 fish, goldfish, blackfish and bluefish…How many of each could I have?”
“I have a basket of 12 apples I pulled off 3 trees…some are yellow, some are green and some are red. Can you come up with a combination of apples that would add up to 12?”
And other stuff…
Lucky US! Ms. Jennifer came back to teach us how we can get our bodies warmed up for writing by using some Brain Gym techniques!
Writers keep feet firmly on the ground!
Criss-cross…right hand, left-knee…
Birthdays GALORE!
Alphas showered appreciations on Hope, Jack and Bodhi this week!
Upcoming Events…
- 12/10- FOUNDER’S DAY! Our beloved Georgie will be honored by AHB by donning CRAZY SOCKS! Feel free to bring a thank you card or flower for Ms. Georgie!
- 12/15-18- WINTER FAIRE!
- 12/16- Alpha Portfolios on Parade Presentation @ 1:30pm in the Community Hall!!
- 12/22-1/2- WINTER BREAK!
What a great week- and we look forward to lots more greatness as we amble forward towards end of Q2!!
Enjoy your weekends!
Love,
Eliza and Kim
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