Thursday, February 11, 2010

What a week!

Four days in the Life of Erin's Classroom ...

 This Monday my class celebrated the 100th day of school even though it was really 101. This caused mild confusion and major frustration among my second graders. (Last Friday was the actual 100th day of school but we had scheduled a guest speaker visit in the afternoon.) Once we were all on the same page about why we waited a day to celebrate, it was a great day centered on the number 100. We counted out 100 marshmallows and made towers with toothpicks, graphed the color distribution of M&M's, and searched for 100 paper chicks hidden in our classroom; some of which have yet to be found. In the afternoon we did a timed math test with 100 problems and read for 100 minutes. Our special 100th day activities made for an eventful Monday.

On Tuesday we had a somewhat normal morning. In the afternoon we started making our card holders for the Valentine’s Day party. And that seems like about all the structured teaching I got in this week.

Wednesday morning we had a short visit from some pre-dental health students from WSU. In the afternoon we did some fun activities related to Chinese New Year, including making paper Chinese lanterns. They had a great time making different figures with Tangrams too.  We talked about how the Lunar New Year is different than the January 1st New Year. In a vote, my class thought the longer Chinese tradition with dragons sounded way better than just staying up past bed time to watch a ball drop.

The kids have Friday off while I have a teacher in-service so Thursday was the day of our Valentine's Day party. In the morning to get into the spirit, we read the book Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. Then we talked about families and people we love. Last we wrote letters to people we love. In reading and checking the letters before sending them home, this one stood out to me as really funny. I thought some of you might get a kick out of it. So here it is as written by the student.

Dere Big Brother,
i love you verry much. Even if you kickt and punch me.
Love,
Your Little Brother
P.S. i stol your munny and i cept the chang. and good luk on valentims day!

As you can see my skills as an educator are really coming through in this child's writing conventions! After lunch and music class I was time to start our party! I have some very wonderful parent volunteers that helped me a bunch by organizing a great craft activity and snacks. The class was so cute to watch as they exchanged Valentines. The kids beamed each time one of their classmates came and put a card in their mailbox.

 Over all it was a great party and a good week. I think we worked on a big craft project for four days in a row. It was neat to see the more creative students in their element, cutting and pasting up a storm. However, I am hoping that the next couple weeks are not this busy everyday!

PS. Check back soon for pictures!

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