I know yesterday was kind of my "goodbye until Thanksgiving Break is over" blog post, but I wanted to share some things we did today!
I've had a lot of Scholastic orders come to me within the last few weeks (I'm fully aware that I have a problem). That means that I have lots of their white boxes in my room right now, and I thought they would be perfect for free time. A lot of the time in school, even during "play" time or "free" time, for better or worse, there is an end product in mind that the kids are trying to achieve or replicate. As much as possible, but especially during free choice time, we've been trying to make sure the play is as student-lead as possible with no endgame in mind. These boxes were perfect for that! All I did was put the boxes on my table, say that they could do whatever their imaginations told them to do, and let the kids who wanted them pick them out.
We had two takers: Chloe and Maddie. At first, they were working separately, but within about 2 minutes, they were trying to connect their boxes to make a rocket ship (because OF COURSE!) I stepped in only to help them tape the boxes together with my trusty packing tape, and get the top box in place. Check out their masterpiece!
I've had a lot of Scholastic orders come to me within the last few weeks (I'm fully aware that I have a problem). That means that I have lots of their white boxes in my room right now, and I thought they would be perfect for free time. A lot of the time in school, even during "play" time or "free" time, for better or worse, there is an end product in mind that the kids are trying to achieve or replicate. As much as possible, but especially during free choice time, we've been trying to make sure the play is as student-lead as possible with no endgame in mind. These boxes were perfect for that! All I did was put the boxes on my table, say that they could do whatever their imaginations told them to do, and let the kids who wanted them pick them out.
We had two takers: Chloe and Maddie. At first, they were working separately, but within about 2 minutes, they were trying to connect their boxes to make a rocket ship (because OF COURSE!) I stepped in only to help them tape the boxes together with my trusty packing tape, and get the top box in place. Check out their masterpiece!
In social studies yesterday we reviewed that we live in Vermont, which is in the United States of America, which is a country on the planet Earth. We reviewed what a model is as well, and looked at a globe, which we decided is a model of the Earth. The kids noticed that there was more water than land, which prompted me to show them the live stream of the International Space Station on the NASA website (want to feel humbled? It's spectacular...take a look! https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/#iss ) There were lots of "I want to go to space some day!"-type reactions in the room, so I wonder if that's where this BRILLIANT idea came from for these girls? Maybe not. But regardless, I loved seeing them create this!
To close, I will leave you with a photo of Oliver in his Thanksgiving Add-On Day attire. I think it's a pretty great representation of how we feel about Fun Fridays in this room!
To close, I will leave you with a photo of Oliver in his Thanksgiving Add-On Day attire. I think it's a pretty great representation of how we feel about Fun Fridays in this room!