A Busy Friday

We started the day, exploring and practicing math concepts. At one table there was a tesselation puzzle, at another table there were scales to compare the weights of plastic bears and at the third table there were dominoes, as visual aides, to help the children write addition equations.
Next we bundled up and headed to the woods with Faye, our naturalist. We discussed how various animals adapt to their environment. Here the children are looking at deer pelts. Did you know that in the winter a deer grows fur that has a little air chamber in it to help the deer stay warmer?

Since we don't have this special adaptation we returned to school for a hot cup of cocoa after our walk.

In the afternoon, the bats came to our school. We saw 5 types of bats from around the world and learned how bats help us by keeping down the insect populations. The "bat man", Dale, also told us ways bats have adapted to their environment. For instance, there is a type of bat that sleep in trees. While it is

sleeping, it looks like a pine cone, so that hawks and other predatory birds won't find them. Another interesting fact is that usually bats hang upside down except when they go to the bathroom. Why, you may wonder? Ask your child; I bet they will remember the reason.

At the end of the day, A'esha was the guest teacher. She taught us

how to finger knit. It was quite tricky so I think we will all need a bit more practice before we get to be an expert like A'esha.

February calendar

February is a short but busy month

Mark your calendar with the following events:

Monday, Feb. 1 Concert at Hill Auditorium, 11:00-12:00

Ladysmith Black Mabazo

We will be taking our bus to and from the concert.

Lunch will be 12:30-1:30.

Tuesday, Feb. 2: Groundhog day (one of my favorite holidays)

Friday, Feb. 5: Video at school, "Bill Nye the Science Guy:

Architecture"

Wednesday, Feb. 10: Bring items to decorate valentine mailboxes

(stickers, ribbons, buttons...)

Thursday, Feb. 11: Trip to the UM School of Architecture with Imogene and Elaine,

10:30-11:30

We will be taking our bus on this trip.

Friday, Feb. 12 YY Valentine's day YYY

Don't forget to bring valentine cards.

Friday, Feb. 19 Wild Swan Theater Production at WCC, 10:00-11:00

"Under the African Sky"

We will take our bus to and from the performance.

Monday, Feb.22-Friday, Feb 26 School closed for winter break

How can a pair of new shoes turn into a lesson?

This story is a bit convoluted but I think it is worth telling because it shows how a moment in the day can blossom into an incredible learning experience.

Tuesday, before school I was listening to a song/video my friend, Anne, sent me. The song was written by Anne's friend, about Anne's husband's new shoes. While I was listening, David came into the room and heard Obama's name in the song and froze in his spot to listen. He was so interested that I decided to play the song for the whole class.

Before playing the song, I introduced it (a mini civics lesson). I asked the class if anyone kne w someone famous who lives in Washington D.C. One child came up with the president. I explained my friend lived there too. Her husband works for congressman George Miller of California. No one knew what a congress person does. We discusses that many people help run the country, not just the president. Each State votes for people to be in Congress and these people help make decisions for the country. Then we listened to the song. The children were mesmerized.

Click song to hear.

I took pictures of the event and sent them to Anne so she would know how much we appreciated it. She forwarded it to the song writer, her dad, and Congressman George Miller.

While the emails were flying around the country, I asked Jan, our fabulous music teacher, if I could share it with the other K/1 class during music class. She was thrilled because she is going to start doing song writing with the classes soon.

Next I received an email from the songwriter, Marika Partridge. I read it to the children:

"I cannot believe there is VISUAL EVIDENCE of this inspiring teaching moment! Thank you Elaine. The picture made me howl with delight! I want to write another song for those darling and attentive kids in Michigan."

She also wondered if the children knew what the word "kicks" meant. (a vocabulary lesson) We listened to the song again. The children concluded that "kicks" must be shoes and "nix" must mean no. How fun!

So from a song to a civics lesson to a music lesson to a vocabulary lesson to expanding our SK "community" to people in Washington D.C.

Movement in Math

Last week, Jesse came to our math class to teach. She created a fun way to teach the children about "partitions". The children got into groups according to the number put on the board. Then they had to divide up into as many variations as they could figure out while Jesse wrote the corresponding addition problems on the board. For example, if Jesse wrote 4, the children formed groups as Jesse wrote: 4=2+2=1+3=1+1+2=1+1+1+1

Thanks Jesse

Community project

Mrs. Carpenter has designed a fabulous MLK day project for the school, with the cooperation of Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's supplied 50 bags for us to decorate to commemorate the ideas of Martin Luther King.

In the spirit of community and people working together, Renata's class came and worked with our class decorating bags. Renata's class assisted our class in spelling words correctly. The first 50 people who shop at Trader Joe's on Monday, January 18th will receive one of our beautiful creations.

Speleology

The first day of our cave unit the children brainstormed things they already knew about cave:

-bears live in caves

-lots of animals live in caves

-cavemen lived in caves

-caves are 'sombre, tres sombre' ( French for 'dark very dark')

Don't you love that the children are integrating french into everyday conversation.

-bugs crawl in caves, so do spiders and bats

-sometimes caves are long, sometimes short

-maybe plants live in caves

As the unit continues, their knowledge of caves is expanding along with their vocabulary.

Children love long complicated words and our cave unit is full of them.

Did your child remember that speleology was the study of cave?

Vocabulary from last week: stalactites and stalagmites.

This week we are going to talk about cave animals:

trogloxenes, troglophiles, and troglobytes

Each child will be assigned an animal to do research about at home and then presenting the information to the class. More information about this project will be coming soon.

Mark your calendar

Friday, January 15

School closed: report writing day for teachers

Monday, January 18

School closed in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.'s

Friday, January 29

Busy day

Make sure your child has warm clothes at school, we will be taking a winter nature walk with Faye Stoner in the morning.

Bats will be visiting our school in the afternoon.

The first cave project: building a cave.

As I was driving to work Monday, I saw a cane dome (from an old chair) on my neighbors curb. During the day I realized this was a perfect top for a cave. I was in luck. When I got home it was still there. Obviously, no one else saw the great potential in this item.

Now, I had the top. What next?

Turn it over to the children, of course! And they came through with flying colors. Sydney came up with the first idea for the construction.

"We could put the top on stools." The children rushed to take down the stools and placed them in a circle. As this was happening, children were talking to each other and agreed the dome needed to be covered with a blanket. Joanna came in the room at this point and said she had blankets in the office. The blankets didn't cover all the gaps so they grabbed their pillows and some scarves to put around the sides. Someone grabbed the old "camel hump" and transformed it for another life as a rock next to the cave. And...

Voila! A cave!

As the children took turns entering the cave there were exclamations of awe and glee.

"It's really like a cave."

"It very dark."

"We could be bears living in this cave."

"It's kind of scary."

As we continue to learn about caves, I anticipate several metamorphosis of the cave. Natalie has already suggested making tissue ghosts to hang inside.

More soon on our adventures in speleology. ( If you are uncertain of the meaning of speleology, ask your child and see if they can remember.) We will be learning a lot of new vocabulary in this unit.)