A wet and muddy 5th week of school!
News
We began a new drawing and writing routine called News. Each week children will draw and write about the news from their life. It is a growing document and one which the children will revisit often to monitor how their writing and thinking is changing over the course of the year.
Math Workshop
We also considered a Math problem which arose from our current read aloud, My Father's Dragon. The children were challenged to count all the creatures that the main character, Elmer Elevator, ran away from in the book. First, we brainstormed a list of all the creatures and then, with the help of paper and pencil, the children went to work counting them. This wasn't, however, entirely straightforward because there were seven tigers and two tortoises and two boars, etc. so just counting each animal type wasn't going to work. Children work at various levels of abstraction to represent the animals they were counting-- for some it was pictures, for others just x's, and others used only numbers.
During Monday's Art push-in time, Julianne led the children in partner body tracing to create calacas (skeletons). This is part of our Dia De Los Muertos study that we began last week. We will continue this investigation through Dia De Los Muertos on November 2.
Creating a classroom with arrays of rainbow bears
Kate, the Recess Facilitator and Extended Day Director, came in to talk about Social Rules. We had a great discussion about the meaning of the word 'social' and afterwards the children set about creating their own social rule books. This week they designed the cover of their books and on Kate's next visit we will begin filling the insides as we consider what rules are necessary for everyone to feel safe, strong, and happy.
Celebrations
On Monday Lyssa read the book, I'm in Charge of Celebrations in which the author, Byrd Baylor, discusses the hundred plus personal celebrations she has put on her calendar over the years (Rainbow Day, Coyote Day, Green Cloud Day, Dust Devil Day...) as she has experienced unexpected, lovely things. This project gives each child in the class an opportunity to reflect on something meaningful to them and find a day on the school calendar to celebrate it. They decide how it is celebrated and it becomes a class holiday.
We began our Ant investigation in earnest. After reading about ants children went to work doing an assortment of things to display and consolidate their new knowledge. The children's growing scientific understanding of ants is still able to accommodate fantasy and implausibility. This tension creates wonderful possibilities.
An ant colony in the block area
Scientific drawings of ants and ant colonies. Rather than just drawing the 'platonic ant' the children really focused on the parts of an ant and attempted to depict all the details of an ant's body.
A queen ant
A detailed, scientific drawing of an ant colony (all of these ants wear eye glasses).
Ant pupae (the white blocks) have been spirited away by a den of snakes.
All of the baby ants are massed at the top with the worker ants (the colored blocks) helping to feed and clean them
another ant colony
real ants discovered outside and (now that the rain has arrived) inside the classroom
Engineered structures -- marble runs, towers and top spinning surfaces
Have a great weekend!
Ben and Lyssa
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