Monday, December 6, 2010

A Look Back on the Past Month


Hello Friends of Room 5,

With no blog post since October, you may be wondering if Room 5 took off on an extended holiday for the month of November.  No, we were here at Manor School, busy as always.  In fact, we’ve been so busy that Miss Emily has put the class blog on the back burner.  But, take heart, we are back, and boy do we have updates for you!  Here are the kids of Room 5, with their take on what’s been keeping us busy since Halloween.

“Winter Faire is always fun.  How could it not be with a luge, super slide, cotton candy, snow cones, and lots of other fabulous things?  I certainly had fun!  At the beginning of it, I went on the big slide with Ms. Emily, Tori, and Meleah.  I brought my watch, and my dad.  He waited at a table while I went around with tickets, until a certain time (which is why I brought my watch), doing cool stuff.  Good thing it didn’t rain!
 --Ruby

“The class was getting excited because we were going on a field trip to “The Sound of Music”!  One of our classmates was in it, Connor.  Ms. Emily read off the names.  “In Krista’s car, there will be Liza, Ruby and Maya.”  When Ms. Emily finished, the groups headed out to the cars.
Once everyone got there, we all got on the deck ready to go inside and watch the play.  Also, since it was a day for other classes from other schools to come, Ms. Emily had to check in with the director.  One person from Tech told our class our options.  Our class had the back row.  We had to sit a while and wait for the play to start.
Finally, the play started.  Connor was a part of the chorus but in the play his name was James.  Here are some of my favorite parts: when the uncle says “Presto Chango!”; when they were singing the farewell song.  Ms. Emily says she liked the song “Lonely Goatherd”.  Connor says he likes “Favorite Things”.  It was a great play!”
 --Maya

“My name is Orion and I’m going to tell you about the word wall that my dad put up.  The word wall is right to the left of Lily’s cage.  What we have there now is adventure, almost, buy, believe, Chanukkah, Christmas, Hawaii, merry, once, only, Santa Claus, should, and who.  That took me about 10 or fifteen minutes to write all that!”
 --Orion

“We started “Mean Jean the Recess Queen”.  I am in group 2 and one of my lines is “Say what?  Say who?  Who do you think you are talking to?”  I am Mean Jean.  Sacha is Katie Sue.  “How did you get so bossy?” is one of her lines.  We don’t work on it much.  The people in the group are me, Sacha, Connor, Tori, Jeremy, and Sophia.  I hope you like this blog!”
 --Nancy


“In November our class and all the other MAP classes made: soup, butter, cookies, etc. for our school’s Gratitude Feast with our buddies.  The next day we met up at the multi-purpose room with our buddies and waited for our food.  The 5th graders served us our food.  Then we gnawed down on the delicious food!  After that I had eaten so much that I didn’t want lunch!”
 --Alexander

“In our class we made soup and butter for the Gratitude Feast.  We chopped different types of vegetables.  We chopped potatoes, celery, carrots, and green beans.  My favorite part was the butter!  After that, everybody got a job to clean up.  My job was putting vegetables in plastic bags.”
 --Connor

“At the Gratitude Feast we got together with our buddies and sang Thanksgiving songs.  My favorite song was “Let there be Peace on Earth”.  I liked the soup and cornbread.”
 --Diego

“For Thanksgiving, I liked that I got to spend time with my family—my mom, my dad, my brother, and my sister.  The really good part was that I got to have turkey and other stuff and my relatives didn’t come.  We all had a good time.”
 --Jeremy

“A few days ago I started a poem about Thanksgiving.  I loved it.  It had a lot of detail, at least I think.  It took a long time to write it.  It was about leaves falling.  I really like that word.  Here is a copy for you to read.
Love—I love my friends
Eat—eating my mom’s turkey
Apples—a crisp fruit that I love to eat
Victoria—me, a little 3rd grader
Emily—my awesome teacher
Scenes—I love the pretty colors that happen in Fall

Family—people I love, like my mom, my dad, and my brother
Acrostic poems—I love to write acrostic poems
Lakes—I love to swim in lakes
Laughing—I love when people tickle me
Ice Cream—I love to eat ice cream on warm days
Nice—I like people who are nice
Gratitude—love and peace on Earth”
 --Tori

“One day in school we had a long Magic Scrap and wow! it was fun!  There was two magic scraps.  The two magic scraps were scissors near the sink and a scrubber next to the scissors.  The two magic scraps were found by the same person and that person was Pema!”
--Brad

“Miss Emily did two magic scraps and I found both of them!  I got a bouncy ball.  Oh, I forgot to tell you what Magic Scrap is.  Well, when the room is messy, Miss Emily picks something that needs to get put away or recycled or thrown away and we all run around cleaning up the room.  Whoever cleans up the magic scrap gets a prize.”
 --Pema

“These last weeks we have started the book My Father’s Dragon.  A couple of the kids from Ms. Chris’ class remember all of the funny things.  Ms. Chris read it to us and we all laughed before, but it was nothing to now!  So, we highly recommend this book.  Seriously, read it!”
 --Ruby

“Last Friday the kids from Ms. Emily’s class had a marble party.  A marble party is when you and your class earn 100 marbles.  We had a great marble party because we even had soda water and a few snacks!  And best of all, the movie we watched was “James and the Giant Peach”!  We had a great marble party!”
 --Kaden


“We watched a movie called “James and the Giant Peach”.  It was cool.  We has pretzels and yogurt covered pretzel and soda water.  I wore Lego Star Wars pajamas!  I brought my white puffle!”
 --Aidan


“Last week we had a marble party!  A marble party is a party with a movie and food.  And pajamas.  Everybody was happy.  The movie was different from the book.  It was the best!”
 --Miles

“The other day we has a marble party!  It was really fun.  We watched the movie “James and the Giant Peach”.  We brought our favorite blanket or stuffed animal.  No one brought a blanket and we all wore pajamas.  Yeah Room 5!  We earned our first marble party.”
 --Sophia

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Halloween

The Crazies of Room 5 (CLICK THE PHOTOS TO ENLARGE)



Halloween at Manor School is how I think Halloween should be... a true festival of creativity and jubilant energy shared by the entire school. 

My first Halloween at Manor brought back fond memories of Halloweens from my own childhood—parading about the school grounds with hundreds of other students, proud as peacocks of our ingenious disguises.  However, one thing my East Coast elementary schools never had was a drum circle to whip up the frenzied Halloween spirit.  We also didn't have goblins on sticks bouncing around the drum circle.  We never did the “Hooookey Spooookey” either...  So, I guess my elementary school Halloween memories don't quite measure up to the fun we had here at Manor School last Friday.

Around the drum circle

Dancing and prancing
Thanks to our fabulous Room 5 Parent Brigade, we had one of the healthiest, most fun class parties too.  Only in Fairfax have I seen kids celebrating Halloween with grapes, popcorn, pumpkin bread, and citrus infused water (made oh-so-cool with a chunk of dry ice thrown in the punch bowl for effect).  The only candy in sight was the bag of candy corns that I had brought in and left sitting out in the open on my desk.  “What are those candy corns for, Ms. Emily?” many of the children asked timidly.  “Oh, you know, just for decoration,” I would reply wickedly.  Of course, I gave each kiddo a small handful on their way out at the end of the day.  Never have I seen kids so excited about a few candy corns!  There was something so old fashioned and innocent about their delight in the bits of sugar.

3rd Grade Room Mom Extraordinaire with our healthy Halloween feast
"Are you a good witch or a bad witch?"
Cutest Lil' Devil ever
The big boys drinking their fizzy drink... a mask is no obstacle.
Scary little friends
Happy Yoda
The Fairy Princess
Grrr
Spooky!
Fascinated by the dry ice effect
Chowing down!
What a character, that Pippi Longstocking!
Pretty green kitty cat eyes
Goofballs
Seriously... what a great Harry Potter!
One of the highlights of the day for me was telling a spooky tale about “my dear departed friend, John” who left his body parts behind to share with us.  After I playfully described each body part, the kids had the opportunity to stick their hands in covered containers to feel the eyes, ears, brain, intestines, and more.  It's amazing how the mind can convince itself that olives stuffed with blue cheese, a dried apricot, tofu, and pasta are the real things described by one's crazy teacher!

Feeling the guts
Grossed out!
Thanks to all of the parents who pitched in to make our Halloween festivities so memorable.  I'm already planning my costume for next year!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Jack O' Lanterns and Monsters... Oh My!

  
Manor, thanks for celebrating Halloween.  Man, it's a good time around here!

Today we got the party started with our MAP pumpkin carving festival.  Room 5, along with the other MAP classes took over the multipurpose room and went to town on dozens of pumpkins.

Of course, this was my first experience with the MAP pumpkin carving extravaganza.  As I gazed at the sea of little kids wielding knives on slimy pumpkins, I had to wonder, "Who's idea was this anyway?"  I had visions of cut fingers and bloodied pumpkins.

Alas, as I wandered about the room, I realized that these kids, paired up with their buddies, did not doubt themselves for a second; they were fearless in their carving.  They were not nervous, and as a result, they relaxed into the activity.  The calm, focused atmosphere, mixed with the creative energy was an experience to be remembered.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


The day ended with a speedy monster-making workshop in the classroom.  Tomorrow and Friday the kids will perform a short skit called “The Teeny Tiny Ghost” for the kindergarten MAP classes.  The monsters are necessary props, and with only 45 minutes to work, the kids banged out 5 life-sized monsters and whipped the room back into shape in time to go home.  Good job room 5!


We can't wait for the school-wide Halloween festivities on Friday!  We hope to see you there.  It should be frightfully delightful!


P.S. A big thanks to Gideon for capturing the pumpkin carving festivities on camera.  Also, THANK YOU to all the parents who came out to help.  It would not have been possible without you all!