Marbles, Hopping, and Legos!

We closed out October with the annual book character day. It’s a fun tradition in Lower School where we dress up on Halloween as characters from some of our favorite books. It’s a neat way to put a spin on Halloween costumes.

One afternoon I tasked the class with making marble runs. It was their first attempt at it in these groups and while they turned out more like mazes, it was a great first try and gave them time to explore the materials. There will definitely be more attempts.

In reading groups I incorporated a new word segmenting game. It is crucial for students to learn how to break down and put together words for reading and spelling. We always tap out words on our fingers/makers before writing them. With this new approach the students had to hop out the sounds using a cut twister game. One stop was equivalent to one sound. Each group practiced using their own strip. They all hopped out each of their spelling words and had fun doing it! It was an effective way to hear every sound in the words.

A not so new activity that the children do regularly is use the build it binders to build their spelling words using legos. This helps with spelling, fine motor skills, and spatial reasoning.

It’s been fun in first, and we are just getting started!!