Family Cultures

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This week we continued our unit study of Me in My Community. Students shared and wrote about their own family traditions and special foods from their family cultures. Jane shared her family chili recipe with us.  Her dad, David, came in to help us make our own batch of their special chili. David talked to students about the individual ingredients and spices that went into his chili. He encouraged students to smell and taste as they went along. There was much talk of food safety techniques and food chemistry as students were chopping, tasting, and sautéing. After letting the chili simmer all day, we got to enjoy the fruits of our labor. I overheard a student telling Jane that her dad makes the best chili in the world! Nina’s Mom, Anna, came in to teach us about the Russian language. We got to meet a popular Russia animal character and learn the Russian alphabet. Natalie’s mom came in to teach about Taiwan and we learned that in Taiwan there are over 30 languages spoken. Natalie’s family speaks Mandarin and her mom taught us how to say “I love You” and count in Mandarin. She taught us a song, showed us where Taiwan is on the globe, and demonstrated how to use ink and a brush to write words.

In addition to discussing our family traditions, we also discussed some favorite community traditions. One of our beloved Forest Grove traditions is the annual Sidewalk Chalk Art Festival. We took a community walk to admire the beautiful chalk art created by Forest Grove artists of all ages.

In numeracy this week students wrote a variety of equations and counted coins as we tracked how many days we’ve been in school. We also continued our exploration of geometry. Students explored tangram puzzles and grappled with composing and decomposing two-dimensional figures. Students discovered that one shape can be composed of multiple other shapes and that using a given set of shapes, students can create a large variety of interesting new shapes. Students worked in teams to create geometric chalk art outside. We read the book Swirl by Swirl and went on a campus walk to discover that math is all around us- in patterns, shapes, and numbers. Students documented their findings and worked with their small groups to create shape posters that will be posted in the classroom next week.

One of the big ideas that we will be exploring this year is that there are a variety of cycles on Earth. Some of Earth’s changes happen gradually while others occur suddenly. This week we’ve been discussing the changing seasons. Students used a camera to record how the plants and gardens in our outdoor classroom look at the end of summer. Throughout the year we will photograph those same plants and garden areas to examine how they change over the course of a year.

Here are some other photos from our week. Students loved sharing special items from home during our community sharing time this afternoon. Have a wonderful weekend!