I'm feeling like I've won the classroom lottery.

Seriously, I've been teaching for 19 years and this was one of the smoothest 1st weeks I've ever had. Why? Your children, that's why. What an amazing crew! The self proclaimed "Dragons and Unicorns" crew have adapted to new faces, new routines and for some, a new school with ease.

And with a new school year, comes some old, familiar student questions:

"Ms. Amanda, when are we going to do school work?"
"Are we going to start doing math soon?" 
"Wow, do we always get to play so much at this school?" 

Yes, yes, we do. We love to play at Hirsch. But what these sweet young things don't realize is that the academics have already started. Shhhh...please don't tell, we don't want to ruin the fun by letting the kids know that they have actually been thinking and problem solving all week.

Here's an example...


Marble madness is a fairly simple visual thinking game. The children have a red cup and a blue cup. Red in right hand, blue in left. The person with the marble says a name, rolls a marble, and the receiving child traps the marble under the cup. To start, we used the red cup only with the left hand. Then the blue cup only with the right hand. Things got a bit more tricky when we used both cups, so you have to call the name of the person you are rolling it to and the cup color you want them to catch it with (later, we will add more than one marble to the mix, mwuahahaha!)

See? Simple game, right?

Not so fast, young Jedi.

Before we even started the game, we were already putting the kids to the problem solving test. We explained that we were going to play a game where we passed marbles to each other. "Where should we play this game?" we asked. A couple of students said we should do it right there at the table, but a couple of others felt like it would be too loud. So, they decided that we should sit in a circle on the carpet. There were some pretty big spaces between us, though, and the kids realized that the marbles would go all over the place if we didn't find a way to contain them. After a few minutes of deliberation, they plugged the holes with beanbags and stuffed animals.

So we were totally ready to play when...wait...my body is sticking out in the middle of the circle.
"Move back, Ms. Amanda!"
I scoot back and *ouch* hit my head on the table.
"Just sit under the table, Ms. Amanda."
But I didn't want to sit under the table; I wanted to be with the group. I asked them to help me find a solution. And after a frustrating 3 minutes or so, they figured it out. And by frustrating, I mean for them, not for Erin and me. We love this stuff. They just wanted to get to the game and couldn't figure out why this irritating teacher was making it so tough just to get the ball, er, marble, rolling. But the desire to play with the marbles kept them talking until...

"Let's move the tables! Then Ms. Amanda can fit in the circle!"

And with that, we were able to begin the Marble game.
This is how we roll (sorry) in the Dragons and Unicorns class. We make them think before the game even begins.



Other examples of thinking, problem solving, and good old fashioned academic skills we introduced this week:

• Mystery Box :(foundations of problem solving: using clues to solve a problem)

• Estimation station: (estimating, greater than/less than, adding and subtracting, base-10)

• Morning Work: (spelling, capitalization, calendar, time, data collection and analysis)

• Brown Bags: (comprehension, sequencing, making a pre-writing map) 

Spelling Treasure Hunt: Is it work or is it play?

Zoe spots it...

...and records it.

Parents, please, don't blow our cover. Let the kids think we played all week.

Next Week:

I will be starting Key Math and Word Reading Efficiency assessments. Please make sure your child gets a good night's sleep and a big breakfast each morning!

Look for reading logs to come home in a folder each night. I would like for each child to read for 20 uninterrupted minutes a night and keep a record of what they have read. I know it can be hard to find that long of uninterrupted time, but its really important for the children to have this time to build reading stamina.

We will have our first swimming day next Wednesday at the Decatur Dekalb YMCA. Carpool is from 8:45-9:00 at the YMCA.

 Next Thursday night, August 22, 7:00-8:30 is the Hirsch Parent Orientation. More details to come.