Saplings Core Nov 10-12

This week we introduced the teaching of Cleanliness. We discussed on Monday how this teaching is not about keeping our bodies clean (though it is a good thing to have a clean body), that is is about keeping our mind clean. We introduced our Magic Hand tool, which is used to clear our minds of things that we see, hear or feel that cause us to feel poorly.

Our statement to go with this teaching is:

My good thoughts lead to good actions.

Monday this week was for finishing up the last of our spelling tests and math minutes before shifting our mornings into business related learning.

Tuesday was a snow day. I hope everyone was able to have some fun in the beautiful snow.

Wednesday we resumed in the classroom with our formally adjusted morning schedule: Braiding Sweetgrass, silent reading, cursive practice and spelling word practice. Today we began learning about making maple syrup which is something we will do in our school backyard in late February or early March if we have a typical Winter.

After our morning tasks were complete, we learned a new role playing game where each student collects items from our "school store" and each student writes up a bill for their customer and calculates the total owed, makes change from their play cash envelope and keeps shopping until their money runs out. At this point, the game resets and all moneys are returned. Valuable skills are learned in this role playing game, including how to make change and writing a receipt. As the weeks move on (there are only 4 left) we will be adding more details to our game to cover all aspects of business.

Monday afternoon, student businesses began taking stock of their products and organizing their items to prepare a product list to determine the value of their total stock, and made plans for product creation from raw materials they invested in last week.

On Wednesday, we had 3 stations going, as we were still waiting on materials for student businesses. Today we began learning how to make paracord bracelets using the box knot, began creating designs to burn onto wooden keychains, and began learning his to top stitch our community quilt. Once complete with our afternoon, students completed classroom chores, packed their bags and enjoyed the last two cookies of our most recent batch to polish off the week!

A little bit of recess fun in the snow! A snowman with a pumpkin head turned into target practice too!

Make a beautiful weekend everyone!