If you give a Tok School Student a Muffin....

We used our cranberries from last week to make delicious cranberry muffins!!!  Thank you to parents who came into help us cook!  (BTW, you are ALWAYS welcome to come in and volunteer, and we AND your kids will love you for it! 😁)

We used this cooking activity for a quick intro to fractions as well as a jumping off point for a writing activity based on the book, If You Give a Moose A Muffin.  More pictures coming on that next week!

Our ants enjoyed the muffins as well!  We are learning about the life cycle of ants, and the kids FOUND an ant pupa OUTSIDE  at recess!  It was so COOL!  

The kindergarteners made ant pictures that were so cute... showing how ants work together like we do in our classroom! 

Another assignment we finished up this week in writing was goal setting.  The kids made great little goal people holding their goals!  They are all displayed on the wall in our hallway for you to check out!

We took advantage of the gorgeous fall weather and collected beautiful leaves one afternoon!  

Then we made all kinds of awesome leaf creation pictures!

Friday afternoon was the district Cross Country meet.  The K-1-2 kids ran a 1/2 mile.  It was hard!  And they did a great job and stuck with it!  The best part?  The cheered on their classmates and had GREAT sportsmanship!  Afterwards we had a sports jamboree with kids from the other schools around the district on the playground!  It was such a great way to finish off the week and enjoy this amazing September weather!

Rolling along with Routines

You are looking at the best class in the school!  OK, maybe I am biased.  But I bet you are too. 😊

We had a beautiful time cranberry picking this week... The berries are so plentiful and big this year!  It took us no time at all to pick a gallon!  We are excited to cook with them this coming week!

Centers and station rotation are happening more, as the kids get used to procedures and routines in our class.  Here the kids are at a listening center in the reading jungle, and doing their spelling sort.  We do lots of station rotation in our classroom, so a great talking point would be to ask your child what stations they went to that day!

All of the classes are doing lots of brainstorming and journal writing!  Some of our topics have been When were you kind? What can your hands do? What is your goal for this year? 

It was PARTY TIME on Friday!  The class earned a special party because they "got to the sun!"  We blast off a rocket each time we catch the class being good, and they have to go all the way from Pluto back to the Sun to earn a party.  We had popsicles and a movie this time!

Kinder Corner:  

The kinders had an apple tasting picnic and made a graph of our favorite apples this week.  We will continue to do lots of fall and apple-related projects!  FYI, Gala apples (the yellow and red mixed) won!

Our ants came in!  So we will be watching them build their ant farm and observing their behavior.  We had fun trying to work together to make a bridge, like the ants did in this video!  

Ready for S'More Learning!

We are back to school and ready for S'More learning!  We celebrated the first day with a bonfire and s'mores at the fire pit behind the school.   We talked about how this year, the Kinders, First, and Second Graders are all combined into one awesome class, just like graham crackers, chocolate and marshmallows are all combined into one awesome s'more, and better than any of them would be alone!  After the s'mores we had fun playing Red Rover and Duck, Duck, Goose!

We had a snowball fight for writing!  Lucky for us, Ms. Akaran, the Principal walked in right in the middle of it, so we got to throw snowballs at her, too!  The snowballs were wadded up pieces of paper on which each student and teacher had written something unique about themselves.  Once the snowball fight was over, everyone picked up a snowball, opened it up, and read what was inside.  Then we had fun guessing who wrote it!  It was a great way to learn more about old friends and get to know new ones!

The students all drew wonderful self portraits, and filled out an All About Me page to display for the school open house on Thursday!  If you weren't able to make it, come and check out our art wall just past the lunchroom.  This is where we will be displaying art and projects all year!

On Friday we had a super fun Lego challenge for a creative STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math) project!  The kids had to design and build a boat that could float, with a partner.  We learned about the engineering design cycle: design, build, test, and everyone had GREAT attitudes and didn't get frustrated if their boat didn't float.  They just redesigned it and tried again.  We had some very very elaborate boats, some simple boats, and some students who took the challenge to see how much their boat could hold.  It was a really awesome hour of total engagement and creativity in our classroom!  

We've had a few parents come in for lunch or recess, or to help in the classroom, which was so fun!  You are always welcome to stop in and visit!  Be aware, we just may put you to work :) .   Please make sure you check in at the front office when you do come in.  

It was a very busy and fun first week, the kids are doing GREAT with learning new routines and being patient with us as we tweak things and figure out what will work best with our new combined classroom this year!  We have a phenomenal group of students!