Horsing around in Alpha!
There is a wonderful opportunity to visit and take part in the annual Austin PowWow the weekend of November 18! Since we’re studying Indian Nation cultures in different regions over the next few weeks we wanted to let you know so your family can have the option to visit and possibly be able to take part in some of the cultural events offered…
What’s Around Us?!
The Great Western Region!
This week Alphas headed North to visit the incredible, mountainous NxNW! We learned that most of these mountains were fairly young, and some are still growing! We learned that tall mountains block rain and create a “shadow effect” which is why there is a desert, called The Great Basin between the Sierra Nevada Mountains and The Rockies. We learned that these mountains in the west held the headwaters of rivers that provide water for much of our country. We learned about amazing animals that call this region home and learned some stories and traditions from the first people that lived there too!
On our way to the mailbox…
To mail our letters to our state and national parks!
After measuring a life-size animals, they sketched, colored in texture, then painted it!
Haida Formline Drawing…
Alphas learned that the first people to live in the Pacific Northwest had been doing so for over 4000 years, which according to some was older than their grandparents 🙂 Formline drawing provided several nations a way to keep traditions alive and communicate family lineage and affiliations. It is a precise artform and can take many many years of practice to master. We practiced with cutting and pasting the shapes and then we tried our hand at using the various forms…
Crescent, trigon, u-shape, and ovoids…
We chose our favorite animals…
Works in progress…
…and complete!
This week in Math…
Ms. Kim’s group…
This week we explored the ways to make 6 with 2 addends! We had fun making monsters using dice and our imaginations. We made new calendars, we added a die-roll to a ten bar, and we practiced vertical adding and subtracting- we are becoming nimble thinkers!
Ta-Daaaaaah!!!!
Ms. Eliza’s Group…
To our doubles knowledge we added doubles plus one (3+4, 4+5, 6+7, etc). We worked on adding facts with 4’s and found that many of these facts we know already! Learning to write equations vertically and using place value to add to 20 was also part of our focus this week. On Halloween we took a little math break to Roll a Monster and play other fun Halloween games.!
This week in Language Arts…
Ms. Eliza’s Group…
What a busy week! Painting and sand writing sight words, writing about our Halloween costumes, playing Python Path and continuing to work with short a sounds. We’ve started our first Author Study by reading the series Yoko by Rosemary Wells – a kindergarten cat who has experiences that give us the opportunity to make many personal connections.
Ms. Kim’s group…
This week we started reading The Lamp, the Ice, and a Boat Called Fish, which was based on a true story. Alphas summarized the first few pages with a simple sentence. Then they took notes about all the information they had about the adventure thus far. Each student, then created an expanded sentence that contained some very detailed and interesting information! We did lots of word work and really enjoyed listening to each others Halloween Potions!
Not only matched, but tried their hand at alphabetizing all the words!
Picked three long “o” CVCe words to write in her word-book…
Early-finishers work on Waldorf Creative Form Drawing…
Morning Activities, Indoor Recess &…
A humungo ‘BALPHA’ (Beta-Alpha) Wild Rumpus on our rainy Monday!
We had many interrrresting characters in our classroom during this witchy week…
The Star Wars crew…
A wicked witch…and La Catrina…
“I’ll get you my pretty…and your little dog too!”
Skeletons, Pokemon, Dark Fairies, Knights, The Fall Guy, Witches, Ninja Turtles, and Jessie the Yodeling Cowgirl!
A Wonderful AHB Madness!
Plus some Red Carpet treatment!
