However, despite the lack of blog representation, I can assure you that we have been having quite a lot of fun amidst all of our hard work! Mr. Ploof and I have seen some huge growth over a very short period of time when it comes to writing numbers. The kids have spent a lot of time writing the numbers 0-5 over the past week or so, and if you ask them to tell you our rhymes for writing them down, I bet they could tell you! We've also been reading a lot of Junie B., as we love her and can't wait to see her at the Flynn in a couple weeks. The kids have also been working very hard on reading with "picture walks" and learning how to "retell" their books to a partner.
But my favorite thing that we've done so far this year happened just yesterday! September 15th happens to be International Dot Day, a day celebrating one of my favorite books, The Dot, by Peter H. Reynolds. The book follows Vashti, a little girl who does not believe she is at all creative or artistic. But thanks to a loving art teacher, she is made to not only see, but believe, that she is capable of many things, if she only just starts by making a single mark and seeing where it takes her! This is a wonderful story about believing in yourself, making your mark on the word, and seeing that you can be and are innately artistic. What a wonderful story to celebrate, amiright?!
So yesterday, after reading the story, our whole day revolved around dots, making our mark, and art! It was completely magical. Take a look...
During math, we did centers like we do in every math period, but yesterday's centers were very different! At one center, the kids put their number writing (and super secret detective) skills to good use. They were each given white crayons and white paper, and were asked to choose a number from 0-5 to fill the page with. Then, they traded papers with a partner who used water color paints (just like Vashti in the story) to paint dots and uncover the secret numbers all over the page.