Aloha! Another First Week

Narnia is my theme for the entire school year, but I also like to have a special theme for
the first week to kick things off. When I went to Japan, I made the first week Japan themed. Since I went to Hawaii over the summer, our first week theme was Hawaii!

Each day, I taught the students a Hawaiian word! Throughout the week, we learned: Aloha, Mahalo, Ohana, Hele, and Honu. My students loved learning a new word and would remind me first thing for their Hawaiian word of the day!

I shared some pictures of my trip with my students, including all the sunrise and sunset photos.

 Everyday, was gorgeous so I thought we'd create some of our own sunrises and sunsets!

I, of course, also showed everyone how cute Spencer looked!

To make our pictures we watercolored the background, and then used black paper to create the outline for the islands. In all honesty, I got this idea from the Hogwarts silhouettes I did last year. Still, they came out looking great!

I also taught my students a little bit about Hawaiian history and culture. Part of the cultural aspect we went over was Hula. We discussed what Hula means to the people of Hawaii and how it is both beautiful and sacred. We were very fortunate to have someone (a previous student!) come in and give us a little hula lesson! She did a fantastic job, and everyone was focused while learning the steps to a particular dance/song. I was especially impressed when several students volunteered to perform the dance in front of the class! They all did wonderfully, and even our hula teacher was impressed!

We ended the week learning about the history of surfing and everyone got to design their own surfboard! Here are a few of our surfboards:

As with any first week of school, we also had to make self portraits. The ones we did this year were really interesting! One side of their face is supposed to be realistic, and the other side is supposed to be all the things they like.

It's been a pretty jam-packed, full year so far! We've got our new language arts curriculum and some new technology this year. It should be exciting! I'm going to try to be better about blogging, but it'll be even more challenging with a little person crawling and climbing everywhere.

Literally climbing on me while writing this blog. 

Through the Wardrobe

This year's classroom theme is Chronicles of Narnia!

 

 I've created table groups based on the mythical creatures in the land: fauns, centaurs,  dwarves, and unicorns. 

Table points have always been a big hit! 

Since each book is fairly short (compared to Harry Potter), I'm hoping to read nearly the entire series. We've started with The Magician's Nephew and everyone seems to really like it so far!

I always like to include a group activity within the first week to allow table groups to learn about each other, and figure out how to work together. I found this fun game called "See, Run, Do". In this activity, someone sees a picture and describes it to another student. This person then has to "run" to the next person and tell them what was described to them. The "Do" person has to draw what is being described. This activity involves listening and communicating, which is so important when you are working in a group. My students actually really enjoyed the activity. Here's the picture they had, and the drawings they completed:

 

 

I'm looking forward to another magically filled year!

"Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters."

The Magician's Nephew, Page 126