Here we are at the end of a wonderful first week! We were busy co-creating classroom dynamics and routines and exploring limits to our environment, materials, freedoms, and time. 

Creative imagination in Magnolia seems limitless. We are shifting paradigms from "arts and crafts" as a separate recreational activity that only occurs after recess, to "creative endeavors" as an integral and interdisciplinary approach to understanding our world, each other, and ourselves. 

Great Work from this week includes (but is not limited to) presentations on pangolins and the Titanic, Among Us performances, a vegetable and flower garden, a Snake Dance depiction, a yarn ball solar system, some very green slime, a very long finger knit chain, Dr. Seuss read-aloud, a model truck, model canyons, ship grid pictures, a clothes-pin lizard lounge, an ocean report and bird studies. We also celebrated Finlay's birthday on Wednesday! 

Lessons this week highlighted the wooden hierarchical material, the noun and the verb, tone bars, the needs of plants, and decimal numbers. We established class norms for working on the patio and speaking in large groups. We ended this afternoon with The First Great Story, and we'll do a re-telling on Monday for those who missed it.

Children articulated concerns for the community to address next week, including: noise volume in the classroom, our new "buddy" assignments, presentation time, the book shelf, listening during group, classroom fidget toys, patio and playground transitions, and tucking in chairs (the last one is my addition). 

Thank you for sending your children prepared to school, including a full water bottle, healthy lunch and sunscreen. Hats are helpful! The indoor shoes look great (crocks, slip-ons, slippers). We put the yarn, potting soil, flower seeds, flowers, and graph paper to good use! Thank you again. Great news: ear muffs, fidget toys and a large new clock arrived for Magnolia and will be in-use next week! We are still accepting pillows for the reading space. 

Next week we will start using work journals. If you can find your child's work journal from last year, please send it in - it looks like a composition notebook. THANK YOU for sending in last year's portfolios *for those of you who have it) these provide a helpful portrait of your child's strengths. I will be looking at them (again) directly with children in our meetings next week. If you find the binder, send it in when you do!

Have a great weekend and I look forward to Monday! Enjoy the pictures below. 

Inger and Sara