March 5th is fast approaching!
Strictly speaking, our All-School Gathering is less than 3 weeks away!
And to mark the occasion, what a day!
COSTUMING COMING ALONG NICELY
You’ve seen Tayler, our news anchor…
Well, here’s “preppy” Sadie!
EXCITING START 1.0 — SAND TRAY ON WHEELS!
Before the day had officially begun, Rilen — with some help from Ms. Eveland (PreK) — wheeled the Fabulous 2G Sand Tray from the front gate to the classroom. WOW!
Thanks again Rilen & Jeff!
It’s rumored the Tuitele’s are trucking some sand in tomorrow… Ms. Bridgewater dropped off some “glass” bobbles… Kristi (Seth’s mum) has some wee animals waiting to come int…
Tomorrow could be something else!
EXCITING START 2.0 — 2G-LED FLAG ASSEMBLY
Many thanks to parents and grandparents who went over lines. 2G outdid themselves at Flag Assembly this morning! WOW 2.0!
At Morning Circle we did a debrief. How was it? You all know ADULTS are less afraid of dying than public speaking?
Ms. Sakiko — who’s been working hard at helping 2G label emotions — would have thrilled at the awareness and verbalizations:
I felt like I was going to faint
I thought I would throw up
I was really scared waiting to speak, but then it wasn’t so bad
Waiting was fine, then I saw EVERYONE on Zoom!
I wanted to crumple up my paper
I wanted to hit the window (i.e., the computer screen showing Zoom)
I was worried I’d lose my place
There were a lot of people looking at us!
EXCITING START 3.0 — MOVE OVER BABY YODA!
We have a white-tern chick!
We finally have visual confirmation that mum and dad were, indeed, keeping their chick under wraps.
But today, Junior was almost too big to get under mum or dad (see photos), and we could see her! EXCITEMENT all round!
2G is already looking forward to watching Junior learn to fly.
Rest assured, Junior is not her name. Ms. Sakiko traditionally names the HNS white-tern chicks so… stay tuned!
Lots more pictures here: PHOTOS 02.16.21.
SCRIPT READING
After the terror of this morning’s Flag Assembly script reading, the script reading in the Reading and Phonics rotation groups went fabulously.
Student are:
Decoding faster
Recognizing and using punctuation better
Beginning to read with real fluency
Beginning to bring voice and character to lines
Really “getting” how it all flows and fits together
Finding their way around scripts with ease — and not losing their places
Becoming very flexible about reading any person’s line that might befall them as we “go around the circle”
Ms. Erin even gave every member of one group a token today for their exemplary attention to script reading.
At the end of every 2G-Led All-School Gathering I’m amazed at how much the process does for Language Arts development.
Today was as huge step in the right direction.
DATA & GRAPHS COMING ALIVE
Script reading is not infrequently interrupted with request for help with Data & Graphs.
‘Tis great fun to have the 5 or 6 script readers switch gears to helping a classmate. Also a great moment for a “mini lesson” for all!
2G is also collecting Kindness and Courage data. They’ll soon be having fun working with it!
FEELIN’ DA RHYTHM
Most everyone’s got the words for “It Takes Real Courage to be Kind,” our 12-bar-blues song.
Now—
Now comes getting all the syllables to fall in the right places!
BIG discussion about the commas in lines such as “People in trouble, people hurting inside.” The commas are good when looking at the lyrics, but the commas need to be ignored when singing because…. we can’t pause!
With two groups we clapped the beat and spent time fitting the lyrics into the right spots together.
So much of fluency is… rhythm!
WHY DO WE DO DAILY DICTATION EVERY DAY?
“Dr. Cat, why do we now do Daily Dictation for ALL our Big Zoom Meetings?”
“Good question, Grasshopper…”
Why?
As we do less formal phonics during February, we can’t forget it!
(Shhh… don’t tell students, but… Daily Dictation is really intensive phonics instruction!)
CREATIVE PLAY, CREATIVE CUISINE
A parent emailed recently and asked, “So, like, what are these playground salads?”
The culinary arts displayed in the 2G Creative Arts Kitchen know no bounds. They are… incredible.
Alas, the muscle-building tire play didn’t get on camera today… stay tuned… like… wow…
WE TRY TO GET THEM FED… TRY
We know lots of hard brain work burns calories like nobody’s business… and…
Getting highly social 2Gers to EAT during lunch — they FAR prefer chit-chatting — is never easy. Thus, we have a 10-minute eating in silence beginning to every lunch.
And as the timer ticks down?
Those students in the two photos above are waiting for 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1-buzz. It’s a daily affair.
After which… they SCREAM in delight.
You’d think they’d all won a nightly lottery!
VIDEOTAPiNG HAS STARTED
3G has four lines in one of our skits — they remind HNS what 2G 2019-2020 did — and as they were free after lunch, they did their bit!
They did a great job too!
Afterwards they told Ms. Torres, “That was SO MUCH FUN!”
Worry not, 2G 2020-2021 will have way more fun because… they’ve got lots more lines and way cooler costumes!
WONDERFUL DAY
Today was one of those amazing days where a ton of hard work got done, and, at the same time, we all had such fun.
We firmly believe that hard academic work and having fun are NOT mutually exclusive. Indeed, we believe learning is one of the biggest thrills you can have as a human being.
We are lucky, too, here at HNS.
As we were creating a space for discussing homework — see the two photos above — we were struck by how many beautiful spaces already exist and can be created.
Our surroundings also support our learning.
TO FINISH WITH A PRAYER
Here’s 2G’s prayer from this morning’s Flag Assembly:
Let us pray.
Lord, help us be gen-tle, • thought-ful, • help-ful, • and for-gi-ving when it would be so easy to be ang-ry.
Give us the cour-age to be kind. ¨
In Christ’s name we pray, ¨ Amen.