Erica Douglass's blog

Today marked the 100th day of school (not counting Phase-In Days) and this was celebrated in a big way by our Primary and Wee Threes students. They all made glasses out of the number 100, sorted and counted a variety of objects into ten sets of ten, and counted to 100 by ones and tens.

All OSMS students (including our elementary students) gathered in the multipurpose room to count 100 students and children. They all did ten sets of ten exercises such as ten jumping jacks, ten arm circles, and ten toe-touches. They had 100 seconds of silence, and had a 100-day parade!

I bet that not many of you get to experience a Pigeon Parade at your place of work! I was just treated to the site of our Primary and Wee Threes students parading past my office wearing pigeon hats and making pigeon “cooing” sounds (some of which sounded very similar to chickens!).

The children made the hats as part of their study of Mo Willems, our author of the month. Willem’s Pigeon (and other) books have been delighting the children all month. Our Kindergarten students had a special drawing lesson in which they drew Pigeon—the results were amazing!

Our primary students have created a beautiful tree of thankfulness. Each leaf on the tree contains a statement of what a student is thankful for. Their responses are poignant, thoughtful, funny and endearing! If you have a few moments you should stop by to check out the tree. It is hanging in the hallway between Betsy’s and Amy’s classrooms. The elementary students will be adding their thoughts/leaves this week.

When I arrived at school this morning Ms. Courtney asked me to come into her room. I could tell by the excitement on her face that is was for something good… and I was right! Today marked the first lesson in the Upper El classroom using our new SmartBoard technology. Courtney had a math lesson up on the Board all set to go. When her students arrived they were equally as excited to see the new technology in action. I know that many great lessons are ahead in the Upper El classroom!

Two Upper Elementary students had an A-ha Montessori moment yesterday that I would like to share…. They had been doing the decanomial work which introduces squaring and cubing and is a precursor to multiples and factors. The students began by laying out beads from the bead bar box (1 one-bar taken once is one, 1 one-bar taken twice is two, etc, then 1 two-bar taken once is two, 1 two-bar taken twice is four, etc, etc, up to doing this with ten-bars). Doing this they were able to identify when a number was squared because the bead bars literally formed a square.