First Expedition

I blogged previously about Carter's school. It's an Expeditionary Learning school. During an expedition, much of the learning is shaped around a particular topic.

Kindergarteners do two expeditions during the school year, and the first one just finished up. The expedition was on Signs, Symbols and Self.

I chaperoned a field trip at the beginning of the expedition back in September. We walked from the school to the town square where the kids had to complete a scavenger hunt for symbols and signs and had to find community helpers and try to spot their tools.

The expedition culminated on Friday with a learning celebration in which the kids got a chance to be the teacher, taking their parents through the classroom to show off their work. Every surface in the classroom was covered with work related to the expedition, and it was easy to see how they had integrated math, reading, social studies and Spanish into the expedition. One thing I loved was that they worked a lot on revising their work, so all the final products were on the walls, but each kid also had a folder that contained early drafts of their work.



Each child used created their own family flag. The symbols on our family flag represent our family members, our love of dancing, pepperoni pizza and birthdays.




The key for the flag symbols was written in Spanish.




As the kids explained their work, a slide show displayed photos from the 6 week expedition.




Another project: Drawing well-known US symbols. Carter really wants to visit DC now. He drew the Washington Monument, but he mostly wants to visit the Lincoln Memorial. As he told us many times, "That's Abraham Lincoln. He was president but he died."




Another project: Community Helper puppets. Carter's is he first one pictured.




Another project: They used a key to look up and copy Native American symbols onto a vest for thanksgiving.


There was more, but that's a little taste of Carter's first expedition! The main final product was a legacy flag that the Kindergarteners created together for the school's weekly community circle. The kids were all so proud of their work, and Carter was particularly excited to get to play teacher!

Chatterbox

John, at about 2.5 months.

More Cuteness

Halloween

We broke with tradition this year and/or we started a new tradition this year. Carter chose to spend this Halloween with his friends. We missed trick-or-treating with Cart Cart and Nonna, but we couldn't deny Carter a chance to trick-or-treat with his school pals.

We discovered that Carter is the fastest trick-or-treater on the block. He gets down to business.

Cutest bat you've ever seen, right?

A big thanks to Mama Helen for the amazing costumes!!

We didn't let him wear the teeth until tonight for fear he'd lose them. Surprisingly, he kept up with them all night long!

John seemed okay with Halloween at first, then he wasn't so sure, and finally he resolved that he'd just sleep through it. 

That's a lot of kindergarten boys.

I vant to eat your candy!

Our pumpkins and our punkins!

Random Cute John Pix

Everyone is undefeated in 2012, even the Cubs.

Bumbo sit!

Little cowboy, including jeans and knit boots.

Exercise

I can't recall the exact context of this moment from a few weeks ago, but Carter announced he wanted to do his exercises. He then proceeded to do pushup (singluar) and jumping jacks (plural).

Every Day Sing

Carter goes to a music program after school. It's a really neat concept: the kids get time for recreation and snacks, but they also get private and group music lessons and do other creative activities. The school's philosophy is essentially that music instruction should be comprehensive and holistic. 


Carter is getting private piano lessons, and he has group classes in things like Notation (music literacy), Animation, Rhythm, and a class they call Every Day Sing, where they, well, sing. Every day. Last week, they had an open house where they shared some of the songs they've been learning so far this year. 


Carter is in the first row, on the far right in jeans and a black shirt. I'd like to state, for the record, that he sings these songs at home all the time. Loudly, even. But... well, you'll see. (Click the bottom right of the video to expand to full screen).

More Halloween-ing

It seems like Halloween has been going on forever, and it is still a week away! Here are some pictures from Sunday's adventure at the botanical gardens.

Recent pics

Parades

Yesterday afternoon, Thomas, Carter & John went to the high school homecoming parade. It was VERY exciting because his teacher was driven one of the floats.

Then, today, we were all in the Little 5 Points Halloween parade. His music school had a float and we all participated. We shrouded John's stroller in spiderweb fabric rather than risking spit up on his costume. We're saving that for Halloween. Carter, however, gave his costume a trial run, minus the teeth. Quite a few people expressed surprise when they realized that there was a "real baby!" in our stroller.