A Little Peace, Quiet, and Nature!

Room140 had an amzing second week of school! This week our class has continued getting to know one another, we are becoming familiar with our class routines, and we have even begun work on our Mini Community-Building Project called Peaceful Friends.

We noticed as we were setting up or classroom norms around working, learning, and playing together that being a kind friend was a super important part of being at school! We talked about how we can be kind friends to each other, and how we can remember to use our "Happy Heart Words" with others as well. We decided to each make a commitment to using these kind "Happy Heart Words" when speaking to others by designing our own happy hearts and displaying them on a wall in our class!

Kinder students also noticed that the word "peace" kept popping up in our conversations, and our class decided to investigate further what peace meant to us. We asked ourselves the questions: "What does peace mean to me?" and "How can I be a peaceful friend at school?"

We read a wonderful book together called The Peace Book by Todd Parr in which the author describes many things that can mean peace. At the end of his book, Todd Parr writes a message to the reader that says: "Peace is being different, feeling good about yourself, and helping others. The world is a better place because of YOU!"

Our class was so inspired by this book, we decided to use it as a model text to make our very own Peace Book by Room140! We came up with lots of ideas about what peace means to each of us, and we started drafting our pages for the book!

As we worked on the pages for our Peace Book, our class also wanted to make a beautiful art installation we could hang above our doors to serve as a reminder to be peaceful friends whenever we went out into the world! We decided to make a mobile using natural materials, string and beads. Ms. Haley had the great idea that we could make our OWN beads using Shrinky-dinks™ (a really fun craft where you color a special piece of plastic, then stick it in the oven for a few minutes and it shrinks!) We could hang these "peace" beads that we designed ourselves from our doorway on a beautiful mobile!

Our class discussed "critique" in order to improve our pages for our Peace Book and our designs for our peace beads mobile. We learned that critique means giving friend ideas to make their work even better or more beautiful than it already is. When we give critique, our ideas for our friends should be kind, helpful, and specific. We worked with a partner to give both warm feedback (what we liked about their drawing already) and also some cool feedback (ways they could possibly improve their drawing/design). Some of us got some really great ideas from this activity and our designs changed a lot! Of course though, critique from friends is just like suggestions, they do not always have to be used.

Room 140 has also spend some time over the last few weeks relaxing in "peace and quiet" as well as in nature! We have Quiet Time each day for about 15-20 minutes where we can reflect about our day, listen to relaxing music, or even take a quick nap if we are super tired! And everyday we also have two recess times to get outdoors, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. For many of our kinder friends, these 2 times of the day are our favorite!

This week our class also had the chance to take a fun trip to High Tech Elementary's very own vegetable garden!!! We had so much fun exploring nature and seeing all the different kinds of things that our garden offers. We collected a small amount of materials to bring back to the classroom for a fun art activity we will be completing next week!