The classroom hosted the Sunnybrook Market this week where the children practiced buying, selling, and processing food.  Each child withdrew $5 from the bank each day and used it to purchase items.  They bought beans for sorting, boiled potatoes for cutting and ricing, celery for cleaning and cutting, carrots for cleaning, peeling, and shredding, popcorn for husking and removing kernels, and garlic for separating and peeling.  They recorded their purchases on the receipt and the grocer helped them add up the total.  There were a lot of requests for carrot cake, but we ended up with more carrots in belly’s than shredded in the bowl.  There were lots of orange faces to be seen around our room.

 

At the art table the children made wallets to hold their money.  Some students finished painting their clay tablets with the natural dyes.

We read several more stone soup stories and discussed the feeling of community that the characters felt when they shared their food, worked together, and enjoyed each others company, like families do at Thanksgiving.  We talked about sharing with those in need, and many students are excited to bring some food items to donate to the local food pantry. Some of the stone soup stories we have read are Bone Button Borscht by Aubrey Davis, Stone Soup by Marcia Brown, Stone Soup by Jon J. Muth, Cactus Soup by Eric A. Kimmel, and Nail Soup by Eric Maddern.

During Spanish we continued to practice salsa dancing, the names of food items, and the color names.

Friday students spent a fun day with Tammy.  They were excited by the snow when they arrived at school, so they cut out some paper snowflakes.  Afterwards they solved some four digit math problems with the golden beads.  For science they marbled paper by mixing oil with oil paints and swirling the mixture on top of some water.  They then printed their papers by placing them on top of the swirled paint designs.   I am excited to see the beautiful designs they made!