It’s hard to believe that it has already been six weeks since we started this school year! This week was the usual flurry of activity including learning about Vincent Van Gogh and the children had a great time painting Starry Night.
For social studies we also talked a bit more about the Liberty Bell, and the purpose of the Continental Congress. The class really enjoyed role playing by having a “congress” of their own where one of the students led the class in a discussion of what kind of a classroom they want. They decided that they want a “Clean classroom, a calm classroom, and a kind classroom”.
One of the class’ favorite activities from this week was setting up a lemonade stand and café where they worked on setting up roles for themselves in the business, setting the menu/ prices, and finally how to grow and improve their business when a “rival business” was set up by some local stuffed animals. They also enjoyed setting up a veterinary office for the local stuffed animals and took turns taking on the role of the veterinarian.
Finally, the class enjoyed a guest speaker via skype – an emergency manager from the Mayo Clinic who talked with the kids about emergency preparedness. She covered such topics as stop, drop, and roll, having a family evacuation plan and fire drill in case of emergency, and finally the importance of knowing important information including your parent’s names, addresses, and telephone numbers. This is something that we will work on together in the coming week.
