Thanks for joining us and reading about the children’s first day! Jennifer has been working hard to plan and deliver high-quality lessons for our students, and we’re thrilled to be able to share “a day in the life” with those of you still sitting on the sidelines. Check back again through the coming weeks to read about all the fun and learning that’s happening with GFT!
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Tuesday, September 11, 2018
We started our morning by filling in our calendar dates for September and talking about upcoming events (such as exciting birthdays this month and next!). We also discussed our character trait for the month—R-E-S-P-E-C-T. After a definition and some examples, of course, we had to have a dance party to Aretha Franklin’s famous song! I asked the kids to report back during our opening show and tell time about things they do in the next month to show respect to others and the world. We also talked about noticing when others are showing us respect. How does that feel?
The poem of the day, which we read together, was We Love Our School by Judy Sierra and Linda Davick. It’s a rebus story, so everyone can jump in “reading” together. We noticed an AABCCB rhyme scheme, which led to lots of (sometimes very silly!) practice rhyming words.
Speaking of rhymes led right into our first phonics lesson—reviewing the sounds of the 26 letters of the alphabet. Once we practiced saying all the sounds, we worked on forming letters out of play dough snakes until someone started asking if play dough was edible…then we knew it was time to head outside for a snack! Despite the misty rain we enjoyed running around a bit and came back in ready for math.
We completed Lesson 1 from Right Start Math’s Level B, which teaches how to use tally sticks, an abacus and subitizing (perceiving at a glance the number of items without counting). We read Yellow Is the Sun, a rhyming book about the numbers from 1-10.
After math, we dove into our first science topic, Human Anatomy. We did “head, shoulders, knees and toes” forwards and backward! We looked at some cool books that show the different systems of our bodies and talked about our body’s largest organ, the skin. We traced an outline of our bodies and read Who We Are! All About Being the Same and Being Different by Robie H. Harris.
Lunchtime in the fellowship hall was followed by a visit to the woods in the rain—wet, muddy, slippery fun! The kids threw rocks into a small pool of rainwater formed by big roots.
Back inside we read Frank and Lucky Get Schooled by Lynne Rae Perkins and then tackled Chapter 1 of Curiosity Chronicles, “History is Cool.” We labeled our felt wall map of the world with the equator, continents, oceans and some animals. We talked a bit about timelines and read In the Past by David Elliott and Matthew Trueman. We then discussed family trees and read My Family Tree and Me by Dusan Petricic.
For art, we started our paper-maché globes (instructions found here: http://www.housingaforest.com/paper-mache-globes/) and then the kids drew and painted while I read our final book for the day, Ah, Music! by Aliki. Our day flew by!
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