Caldecott Celebration

Last week

and this week were full of Caldecott fun--projects, books, voting on books, creating banners for our parade, and much, much more! In math, we started learning strategies for subtraction, and will continue learning how to break apart and reform numbers for awhile. In writing, we spent a lot of time writing about different Caldecott books. The students voted on their favorite books, and from those favorites, we formed groups to represent books in our Caldecott parade. What a festive time! All the other students in the school lined the hallways to see the first and second grade classes march through wearing costumes, crowns, kitten ears, and carrying banners and books for their groups. We saw quite the turn out! Then we got to do various Caldecott-inspired activities, where students did a roll and color-by-number, created Caldecott-themed hats, and got a tutorial on how to draw a Wild Thing from a real book illustrator! It was quite the treat. Thank you for those who came and helped and came to the parade--I hope you enjoyed it! For those who were unable to make it, I hope you can live a little bit of our day through the myriad of photos included below. Have a safe and happy weekend!

Make Way for Ducklings Illustrating Project

Our Wild Things

Making Wind Socks to decorate the hallway!

Artists at work

Making our banners for the parade!

And the winner is....

Counting the Ballots

One of the highlights this week for the kids was having our classwide election process: Duck or Grace for President? As a few students were absent on election day, the kids got to learn about the absentee ballot process as well. When all the votes were collected, we had an official ballot count, with a first reader of the ballot, a verifier, and someone to make the tally marks on the board for each candidate. The winner by 13 votes was.....Duck! We also had our first Art Adventure this week, focusing on a paper-tearing and gluing project that the kids greatly enjoyed. Finally, we have devoted much of our time to reading Caldecott books and completing projects associated with them. This next week, students will vote on their favorite book, and they will get together in groups to create banners for our Caldecott parade during the week of Thanksgiving Break. Hoping everyone gets a chance to enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend!

Kitten's First Full Moon

Kitten's First Full Moon

Art Adventure

Art Adventure

Kitten's First Full Moon

Voting Rights

This week, we focused largely on voting--the process, why we vote, and what is important to keep in mind in order to be an informed voter. This was represented by reading a book called Duck for President and having discussions as to whether the Duck or Farmer Brown would be a better president for the farm. Students then had to register as voters on the farm before they could cast their ballots. Students really got into the spirit of things, bringing up some interesting arguments, and making banners and signs for the candidate they supported. Finally, we practiced cooperation by doing a sorting activity where students learned about the things our leaders are allowed to do and things that they should be in order to be a good leader. Next week, we will read a book called Grace for President, and vote on whether she or Duck would be a better leader. There is a lot of excitement and anticipation to see who will win in our classroom characters


election....