September 11, 2014

Yet another sunshine-filled day for us today, and I am so grateful for the breeze that has accompanied the sun these past few days.  I definitely prefer Spring and Autumn weather to Summer and Winter, so I'm looking forward to the months ahead!

Here's a quote from my devotional today that I wanted to share with you: "When I find myself in deep conversation with Christ, I'm at ease with myself.  When I'm at ease with myself, I'm at ease with others.  This ease then, is how He wants me to govern my days through the power of His Holy Spirit" - John B. Coburn.  How easy it is for us, as parents/grandparents, to get caught up in the whirlwind of life and not focus our time on Him, therefore not feeling at ease with ourselves and others.  This was a timely reminder for me, and possibly for you too, so I thought I'd share it.

Back to the point...what we did today!

1. Opening exercises - today we started our day with silent reading
2. W.W. - the students began their Writer's Notebooks today, and we discussed the purpose of this books.  They are places for them to write about anything and everything, teacher-led or otherwise.  Sometimes they may include pictures if they so choose, sometimes it can just be jotting down words in their minds, sometimes poems, or stories.  It is their free place to write and I don't assess it.  All that matters to me with Writer's Notebooks is that they're writing, writing, writing!
3. Handwriting - today was our first day of Handwriting, and the 3's did some printing review while the 4's did an assessment to show me where they are all at with their cursive writing at this point.  I emphasized that the children needn't worry about how well they can write at this point as we will work on it throughout the year.
4. R.W. - The class enjoyed some read aloud time and then we worked on our Guided Reading work.
5. Math - What a fun Math class we had today.  I've opted to focus primarily on the Math to the Max curriculum (as opposed to Math Makes Sense) for the bulk of this unit as I feel it's more interactive, reaching multiple types of learners, particularly the kinesthetic kids.  Be sure to ask your child about the real-life matrix we made and see if they remember what an attribute is! Here they are in our human matrix, and determining the attributes of the letters of the alphabet:
   
   
6. P.E. - Mr. Banman was away this afternoon, so Mr. Ediger taught P.E.  That was sure to be exciting!
7. R.W. - with Mr. Ediger
8. Chapel - Mrs. Ryskamp spoke about God's home for us in heaven.