Guest Photographers
/This week we were busy preparing for the lantern walk that will be taking place tonight! We decorated beautiful glass lanterns with tissue paper and shimmery glitter. We learned how to finger knit to create handles for our lanterns. I was amazed at the Otters' ability to learn how to finger knit and then teach each other this new skill. I taught two or three students how to finger knit, then they taught others. This knowledge quickly spread throughout our classroom with everyone learning to finger knit in just two days! Students loved knitting so much that they created long, knitted strands, some measuring over 18 feet in length! We will continue to offer finger knitting experiences over the coming weeks. Finger knitting is not only a great fine motor exercise, but it's also meditative and leads to some excellent math inquiries. In addition, it keeps fidgety fingers busy during classroom meetings and helps many children do their best listening. We also practiced reading and singing some of the songs that we'll sing at the lantern walk tonight. This week we were thrilled to have Carter's grandma and Claire's grandma join us on Zoom as guest photographers. They shared some excellent photography tips and showed us some of their amazing photos. We got to see photos from all around Oregon, Antarctica, Africa, and Yellowstone National Park. We also observed how Carter's grandma turned some of her photographs into beautiful greeting cards. We are excited to make greeting cards with some of our own photos. This week we read a book called Have You Filled a Bucket Today. We talked about how our kind words and actions can fill other people's metaphorical buckets. We talk about how unkind words can dip from those same buckets. We practiced being "bucket-fillers".
