Friday, January 13, 2012

Hi, Folks,

Oh, mercy me was it ever cold this morning on the hike (right, Katie Vigilante?). My fingers are still frozen so my note will be brief.


Our big happy family has grown! We are pleased to welcome Bo Fink to our class. Somehow we really lucked out in the cool kid department, because Bo fits right in the the rest of the rock stars in Room 1! He’s also a fierce Uno competitor, so hold your cards close...Here’s Bo and Aidan H. engaged in a fierce battle of “Make 7”

Big put-ups to the rest of the class for being so welcoming and flexible. It can be hard to go from 5 to 7; more noise, less space, less teacher attention, but these guys have really been amazing and patient as we acquaint our new students to our routines.

This week was filled with silly idioms and awesome adjectives. Thanks to our “Geronimo Stilton” read-aloud story, the gang has been “on the edge of their seats” listening for idiomatic expressions. I explain these as a group of words that say one thing, but mean another. Here are some favorites we have discovered:

Wipe that smile off your face
Stuff my face
Gather your thoughts
Sick as a dog
Over the moon
Feeling under the weather
Pulling one’s leg

A couple of kids have illustrated a few of these, showing what these expressions would look like if we took them literally. Funny stuff...they really “crack me up”!
Geronimo Stilton has also provided us with some really loathsome bad guys to use for character maps. Here’s one we did as a whole class on the leader of the nasty cat bandits, Black Bandit.
Some of my favorite descriptive words your kids came up with:
cruel, criminal, jerk, outlaw and talented

What? “Talented”?   Can we actually use good (put-up) words to describe bad guys? Does this mean we could use bad (put-down) words to describe good guys? Well, one student described Little Red Riding Hood as “stupid”. Wait a minute...can we say put downs about her? I thought she was one of the good guys (er, gals). We’ve had some terrific, lively discussions over this, which we hope to continue next week as we add new Geronimo Stilton villains and a different version of Little Red Riding Hood to the mix.


Speaking of Little Red Riding Hood:

Show your child these pictures. Ask them to see how many similarities and differences they can remember between Amanda’s doll and Amy’s (Oliver’s mom) doll. There were many!




So much more I want to say, but I told some of the kids on the hike that I was going to take a hot chocolate and mini marshmallow bath when I got home...and now I think I actually might do that.

Have a great weekend!

Amanda and Erin