Students have been spending time in the Backyard garden picking, observing, and eating bok choy, tomatoes, basil, borage, calendula, onions, chives, sage, thyme, garlic, and swiss chard. They have learned how to use jeweler's loupes to see the amazing tiny details of each vegetable, and have finished their botanical drawings of our garden pesto ingredients. Students this year will be planning and contributing to the school forest and school gardens and are ready to see other examples of gardens, farms, and forests in order to help them get ideas and plan.
We have several trips tentatively scheduled and will need to have MANY parent volunteers join us!
-B Street Farm: (CONFIRMED) Thursday, September 29th ( From 12:45-3:05) (0-6+ volunteers needed)
-Ayer's Creek Farm OR Tillamook Forest: (TENTATIVE) Thursday, October 6th (From 11:10-2:15) (3-6+ volunteers needed)
-Audubon Sanctuary: (CONFIRMED) Tuesday, October 18th (From about 9:10-2:15) (3-6+ volunteers needed)
Please email me if you are able to join us. We look forward to having you!
In reading students have been building stamina with the length of time they are reading. We started at three minutes and are now close to 20. We are learning the comprehension strategy of connecting our own lives to the text by saying, "This reminds me of...". We are also spending some time reading picture books about vegetables, gardens, seeds, and forests in order to gain more background knowledge as a class.
In writing we are reviewing how to sound out words, stretching them out, and writing the sounds we hear. One of the emergent stages of writing is phonetic spelling, which is a very important stage. Students are able to focus on their ideas more and gain confidence as they share their thoughts through words on paper. Spelling will be taught soon as well!
Students are beginning to plan what we should do to enhance the habitat in the school forest this week. We are also beginning to notice and collect the many seeds of the autumn gardens and wild nooks. We are learning about seed saving! Students are encouraged to continue noticing seeds around them, especially outdoors, and to bring them in to share with the class. We will also be collecting materials from home to be reused to create a large model of the school forest and Backyard garden on the large walls of our classroom!
So many students were wearing their rain jackets today! We have a prepared group of kids this year. Please continue to send (or keep) a rain jacket to school with your child.
I'd also like to remind our families that we have a great chance to get together and meet new families during the Harvest Celebration held in the Backyard garden this Wednesday night at 5:30. Come see the future site of the swallows' gardens and forest as well as meet the wonderful people that make up our school community!
As always, weekly classroom news will be posted, along with some photos, at : BarnSwallowClassroom.BlogSpot.Com You can go directly to the blog rather than email if it is more convenient for you.
I hope to hear from you about joining us on our trips!
Sincerely,
Sherry
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