Seven – 7! – butterflies hatched today!!!
Late this afternoon, we set two on the table, and while they slowly opened and closed their wings, the children painted what they saw, completing their first-hand documentation of the monarch butterfly’s life cycle. Now, with each component realized, the children will each make their own poster. These will be hanging in our classroom next week. Come and see!
Our classroom has been so busy. The children have developed their classroom rules, based on each child’s school hopes and dreams. These rules were developed over a period of many days. First they made a list of everything they felt would be necessary to ensure that everyone’s would come true. These included things like “No throwing stuff,” “No rough hands,” “Don’t push and don’t hit.” We called them our “16 Good Rules.” After a few days, I pointed out that there was a lot of “grumpy” language, as almost every rule started with the word NO or DON’T. We then rephrased all of them in the positive, and these became our “16 Better Rules.” The final part of our process occurred when we categorized them into three groups and came up with one big rule to cover several. Everyone helped with the final language. Our “3 Awesome Rules!” are:
- Stay safe.
- Be nice to all people.
- Take good care of our stuff.
All this was hard work, and the children did a great job with it!
Our last weeks have seen us begin several year-long collections – Portfolio Art, Four-Square, Weekend News. If some of these sound mysterious to you, don’t worry, as you’ll get to see first hand what these are at our parent-teacher conferences coming up in November.
We had a great trip to Magic Wings last week. The day was sunny and the butterflies were very active. The conservatory houses 3000-4000 butterflies. In addition, we saw lizards, parrots, tortoises, walking sticks, and many other insects. A big “Thank you” goes out to Diana Sadighi and Vanessa Dawson, who were our drivers and chaperones. It was a wonderful first trip!
A great trip!
Our butterfly unit will end soon – we will release most of the butterflies on Friday so they can begin their trip to Mexico. October will hold its own special themes. More in the next blog.
I’m having so much fun with this class!
Andrea