September 14th--Erik's week in review

This is a portion of the weekly newsletter Erik's teacher sent out this week. We're still so satisfied with almost everything at the school.

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This week has been very busy – a few highlights were our first Teaching Circle with Erik and L. The children worked hard at listening with their “eyes, ears, and heart” to their friends and asked really perceptive and detailed questions of the speakers. Erik brought a calendar that he made with his family and later, in math workshop, D. created one of her own! A powerful example of how we are all teachers in our room. On Thursday, we began another home-school link – our estimation jar. N. brought home a very large jar to fill with one item – cereal, cotton balls, toys cars, etc. – that she will bring back to school and then children will get to guess how much is in the jar and help figure out the answer. I have sent home an estimation jar for many years and it has always been a source of interest for children as well as a great link for practice in writing numerals (including some very big ones), estimation accuracy, and one-to-one counting above 20.

Our SEL curriculum (social-emotional learning) is in full swing. We have been “role playing” all week – a fun and safe way of discussing every day problems (and solutions!) that come up in a group environment. We also had a “planning meeting” to solve some overcrowding issues with the loft space. The children are working hard at finding creative ways of solving problems and beginning to understand their powerful role in creating our classroom environment.

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The teaching circle is like "show and tell", except they don't just bring something and talk about it. The goal is for the other kids to be able to ask questions, and for everyone to learn something. Erik was so excited to bring the calendar that he's made this year.