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Printing Class

Children in kindergarten have been working on writing upper case letters of the alphabet.  During each class, we use sign language, the sound of the letter and dry erase boards to work on three letters.  At the end of class, children have a chance to write in their journals or continue to practice their letters Read More >>

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Amelia Bedelia

Students in kindergarten and first grade have been enjoying the silly antics of Amelia Bedelia this fall.  During class, we read a book, discuss the “mistakes” that Amelia makes and then draw about some of them.  Each child is working on making their own Amelia Bedelia book to eventually share at home with family and Read More >>

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Poetry with Kenneth Koch

“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.” Robert Frost. Kenneth Koch published his Rose, Where Did you Get That Red? in 1973 to enormous acclaim. His book revolutionized the way children are taught to read and write poetry. Around 2000 Mary Cunningham gave us a copy of Read More >>

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VTS (Visual Thinking Strategy)

With our student teacher, Erica, students of mixed ages have been taking a class called VTS. We look at a picture, and silently write about what’s going on in the picture, what we see that makes us say that, and what more we can find in the picture. We have been primarily focusing on pictures from Read More >>

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Homeless Bird, by Gloria Whelan

This February and March, students in a 5th and 6th Grade book club read Gloria Whelan’s book about arranged marriage in India, Homeless Bird. Before we began reading, we watched a short video to expose us to what is going to happen in the book, and we identified things that we already knew about India Read More >>

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Emergent Writers!

As children develop an awareness of letters, and the sounds they make, they also have to learn how to form letters smoothly and automatically, writing from the top of the letter to the bottom. This year our youngest children have enjoyed a variety of classes where they are given the chance to practice copying words Read More >>

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India

Students in Kindergarten and First Grade have been learning about the culture of India through the use of the book Count Your Way Through India by Jim Haskins.  We started at one and learned about how to say this number in Hindi and about the amazing banyan tree.  Students then drew their own banyan tree Read More >>

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Cursive Again!

The second graders are THRILLED to be learning cursive this year. They started off with the clock climbers group – a, c, d, g, and q and have now moved on to the kite strings – i, t, u, p, s, j, o, r, and w. They have been working hard on forming their letters Read More >>

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Math Book Adventures

    This Fall, students in our oldest grades have been listening to a series of math books that discuss and explain all different types of math processes.  Books we’ve read this fall include: Multiplying Menace, Sold!, Rabbits Rabbits Everywhere, and Zachary Zormer: Shape Transformer.  We’ve talked about how multiplying with fractions is the same and Read More >>

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Picture stretch

Four of our youngest students started a class in late October where they are using pictures to help them identify sounds in the words. For the activity each child draws a picture out a bag, identifies the letter the word begins with, writes the capital and lower case version of the letter and then S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-S Read More >>