Dynamic Opportunities Newsletter
In the Dynamic Classroom
MATH
This week in The Blue Room and Imagineer’s Room we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and counted all the food the hungry caterpillar ate. We made our own caterpillars, with the days of the week, and the food that the caterpillar ate each day.
The Creative Arts Room and the Steam Room completed fairytale word problems. The problems were about different fairytales and the students had to use addition and subtraction to figure out the answers. We finished off the class by playing Money Uno.
Next week The Blue Room will continue working on their number sense with fairytales, The Imagineer’s Room will finish their caterpillars and complete caterpillar addition and subtraction problems. The Creative Arts Room and Steam Room will continue working on money with a fairytale twist. If time allows we will play money Uno and start learning a new game.
Music & Movement
In music and movement this week back by popular demand and endless requests we will do Karaoke again.
Language Arts
This week in language arts, we did a complete review of the previous project. The students were able to take an opinion poll of Museum Madness. It was very interesting to see how much knowledge the students gained from the project. They seemed to have equal knowledge of their own and at least one of the others. The students overwhelmingly said they would like to do a project like this again! Some students even asked if we were starting it this week!!
We also reviewed the elements of a fairytale, folktale and fable. The students used setting, characters and object cards to do a collaborative telling of a fairytale and some students made fairytale cubes to roll and help them tell a story.
This coming week, we will continue with elements of a fairytale, and we will be doing multiple readings of fractured fairytales to help the students with their understanding of their project.
Technology
This week in technology and computer lab our students worked in stations and completed their virtual museum exhibits which were a topic based on a passion they had, they also had typing stations and educational websites and some of our students worked on independent study.
Next week, we’ll be creating fairytale character profiles where students will have to research and answer questions to create a complete picture on the character of their choice. We will also be working on following directions with fairytales.
DAILY LIVING SKILLS
Daily Living skills this week saw all of the classes helping us clean up the building from our museum project. Students hauled materials back to our storage room and organized art supplies back into their proper places. All four classes were busy the entire class period! We had made a HUGE mess, but we felt like our museum exhibits were worth it.
This coming week we will be pulling out the school store materials and getting it organized so we can start having school store again.
MUSIC
Last week we worked on our notes by identifying them and singing them together in different patterns out loud and we will do that again this week. We listened to traditional folklore songs originating from different parts of the world. This week we will focus on learning songs related to the fairytales and folklores that have been chosen by the group projects. We will also work on our playing and performing of instruments and musical creative expressions.
P.E.
This week in PE we will continue working on coordination, timing, and working in unison with the giant parachute.
SCIENCE
In the Art and Imagineers room we started a new unit. For the next few weeks we will be learning about the human skeleton. Students were engaged and asking questions.We started with what bones they knew and a discussion about broken bones. When this unit is over students will identify three functions of the skeletal system, explore the shapes and physical characteristics of bones, and that calcium supports strong and healthy bones. Students will also have a chance to engineer a skeleton hand print and create a human skeleton out of pasta.
The Blue and Projects classes started this week with our STEM fairytale unit which will revolve around Little Red Riding Hood. The learning outcomes of this project include life science, math, problem solving, sequencing, shapes, and numbers. This week we read Little Red Riding Hood tying life science into the lesson we made a wolf chart learning what wolves eat, where they live, what do they look like, and what they do. Next week we will read the story again and the students will answer questions using our felt board. Students will be asked to retell the story with the felt characters.
SOCIAL STUDIES
In Social Studies this week we discussed how the museum exhibit unit went, including likes, dislikes, things to change for next year, and potential ideas for exhibit topics for the future. We also introduced the origins of fairy tales in history including preliminarily exploring Brother Grimm’s fairy tales. We then explored, read, and analyzed several fables from the famous Aesop’s Fables. This upcoming week we will continue to dive deeper into the history surrounding specific fairy tales.
Art
This week in Art our students celebrated Saint Patrick’s day and made themed art using directed drawing and following directions skills. Next week they will be starting a fairytale project in class that will be our project for the next few weeks.