Arts Walk and Oceans

We shifted our time period briefly to study Georgia O'Keeffe and to create some of the most beautiful art to be seen at Arts Walk!  I took the liberty of snapping some pictures of the art while it was on display...

Ah, and the picnic as well, of course!

Waiting for the Procession to begin!

Following our study of O'Keeffe, we took our last time travel trip through the magical and mystical time machine to the 1950s.  We landed smack dab in the middle of the ocean, aboard the Calypso!  Like Jacques Cousteau, we shall study the ocean and its inhabitants.  In Jen's class we have also been studying various properties of salt water.  Today we looked at buoyancy and saturation, and began a crystal growing experiment.  (I did not get pictures of the actual buoyancy experiment, as I did not really want my phone to get soggy and salty!)

We will be monitoring those salt water jars to see how the crystals grow at different levels of saline saturation, or in some cases, OVER saturation.

In math we have been working on understanding different expressions of the concept of averages.  Nearly everyone now has some understanding of Mean, Median, Mode and Range.  One workshop we did in class was to measure how far each child could blow a pencil, and find those values for each child.  That was fun, if a bit lightheaded.

Other math we have done lately includes learning order of operations.  Some of my favorite mnemonics beyond "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" include "Parents Eat More Donuts After School" and others on display on a poster in my classroom.

Can you believe there are only 23 school days left in the year?  So much to do!  

Turkeys, Queek and Catapults!

Where did November go?  It seems to have flown by!  If it weren't for the sun setting at 4:24 (that's right, 4:24!!!!), I would hardly believe that it's December already!  Inspired by the Thanksgiving holiday, we spent time reflecting on our lives and the many things we are thankful for!  We have so many things to be thankful for and it was nice to stop and take some time to recognize this!  

Thankful Turkeys!  See some of the things we are thankful for!

Fall Trees!

Numbers galore!  We are just about finished with our "number sense" unit in Math.  We have most recently been focusing on number writing (which way does that 3 face?), recognizing numbers and ordering numbers.  "OOPS!" has been a favorite game for many!  To play you start with a stack of number cards...maybe 1 to 10 or 1 to 20 or perhaps 1 to 100, counting by 10's or 5's!  Here come's the fun part...you accidentally drop all of your cards, mixing up the order...OOPS!  Now, it's time to get those cards back in order!  Fun, fun!  I was quite impressed to see that much of the math we've been working on was able to be easily transferred to paper...with a bit of enthusiasm and hard work, our first set of math worksheets were a success!  Yay!

OOPS!

Race to 100, using base 10 blocks!

Carefully working on her number book!

We are busy authors during Writing Workshop...this has truly become a favorite part of the week for some...I have even had requests from some to write instead of playing games...sure!  Some of us focus on getting letters written on our page, others focus on stretching out words and writing as many sounds as they can, while others focus on creating stories that have a beginning, middle and end.  It has been rewarding for students to feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing a book and reading it to our class!  We steadily move forward in Phonics Centers, a time of games, worksheets, picture sorts, word ladders, word wallets, alphabet puzzles, handwriting...To keep things interesting, centers vary from week to week, although the focus of each of the 3 stations remains consistent: practicing handwriting, learning/practicing a new phonics concept, and reviewing  past phonics concepts.  Currently some focus on learning beginning consonants, others are just beginning to learn the sh and ch digraphs, while the last group is focusing on word families for each of the baby (short) vowels (_et, _eg, _en).   

You may have noticed (or not noticed, as the case may be!) a lack of theme work in your child's Thursday pack!  I have been saving all of the work, which will soon be placed in a "lap book" and will be ready to share at the upcoming portfolio share!  Our time in the MIddle Ages continues to be an interesting and fruitful learning experience!  Recent explorations have provided insight into the types of games kids played way back then (Surprisingly, these games still have quite a bit of appeal today!  I think marbles may actually make a come back!)...see if your child can describe some of the games to you!

Playing Queek is so much fun!

Ready for a big game of CHECKERS!

Aside from games, we've learned about the medicinal herbs of the time (I have had many requests for mint tea to soothe aching bellies in the past couple of weeks!), heraldry, chivalry codes (we even wrote our own chivalry codes!), catapults, and tried our hand at drawing castles!  We let our creative juices flow as we created stories in small groups that took place in the Middle Ages.  Each group chose 3 words that had to somehow be incorporated into their story!  What could you create with the words unicorn, drawbridge and crown or princess, falcon and catapult?  Jen's class took on the project of learning to make ink from oak galls, as they did in the Middle Ages.  Friends from this class taught us about the process and shared some of their ink with us so that we could write our names!  Writing in the Middle Ages sure involved a lot of work!   Check out Jen's post Oak Galls and Catapults, oh my! to read about their experiment! 

Castles and Shields...each of the symbols on the shields represents a specific trait...Ask your child to explain!

We had so much fun learning to make catapults from our friends in Jen's class!

                                     

As I take time to reflect on the things that I am thankful for in my life, it is clear to me that one of the things I am most thankful for is this community.  I LOVE getting to know all of you, and I especially love sharing my days with your wonderful children.  I am so lucky to have the opportunity to learn and grow and be creative with such amazing people!  

Oak Galls and Catapults, oh my!

Today my class completed our month-long science experiment creating medieval ink from oak galls.  We started out with a couple of buckets of oak galls collected by one of our younger friends' parents.  This was a pretty involved project, and our science will lead into a really beautiful art project quite soon. 

First we squashed the oak galls with enough water that the powder released would stay wet and not airborne.  After that, we mixed the galls thoroughly into 5 identical batches. 

They were really lovely before we squashed them.

They still look pretty lovely in these jars...

Oooh, don't get too close!

We kept track of each step of the way.

Day 8 we separated the batches and introduced different variables to 4 batches.  We kept 1 control batch.

Just before separating the batches.

We separated the batches in this manner:  Batch A we kept just the way it was.  Batch B had iron added to it.  Batch C had iron and vinegar added.  Batch D had iron and heat added.  Batch E had iron, heat and vinegar added.  We created hypotheses about what we thought would happen to the batches, which batch we thought would would turn out the best, and why. 

We let them sit, stirring occasionally, for another week and 1/2.  We tested the color of each batch often.

Once our batches had had a chance to react to the different variables (21 days), we began to strain them and tested them one more time.  We decided that the batches with heat and chemical change worked the best, but that the batch with heat, chemical AND acid change was the best by far. 

drip, drip, drip...

Jen says, "ouch!  Don't accidentally dunk your fingers in the hot ink!  Oh hey, look, it works really well!"

Watch this space for images of our Book of Hours, later on.  In the meantime...

While we were conducting our science experiment in Theme, we were learning about angles in Math.  We used our knowledge of angles to construct and test tetrahedral catapults.  What a fun project (educational, too)!

Okay, so we'll need 25 sticks, and a lot of tape...

We'll need a long flinging arm and a source of tension (rubber bands).

It's important to measure each stick so the tetrahedron is equilateral.

They turned out great!

WHEN are we?

It's the middle of October and the rain has finally come!  Yesterday was our first rainy day recess and we bundled up in our brightly colored raincoats and boots and headed out for some fresh air (you may have noticed the wet clothing that came home)!  Please check to make sure that your child has a raincoat and set of boots that can be kept at school...we will often be venturing out for fun in the rain!  Thank you! 

Fortunately, we had beautiful sunny weather for each of our first two field trips!  

Hopefully we spread lots of peace as we journeyed through downtown with our peace doves and posters!  

Bike week always brings lots of smiles!  What a fun way to spend recess!  We had 2 wheel bikes, bikes with training wheels, scooters and balance bikes!  Yay!  I am happy to report that everyone was very careful and mindful of other riders, allowing us to really focus on how fun riding together can be!  Perhaps we should have a repeat in the Spring?  If you'd like, check out Jen's post  Here we are in the Middle Ages! to see pictures of our biking trip, as well as our trip through the time machine!  Thanks for sharing Jen!

Friday was our 28th day of school!  Wow!  I can hardly believe it's been that long...time really does fly when your having fun...or perhaps it was the time machine that had something to do with this!  As you may already know, we have traveled through the time machine and landed in the MIddle Ages!  

We created groups of 100 noodles and counted by 100's until we had 1000 noodles in our bag!

Our THEME studies so far have been spent exploring great castles (do you know  what a keep or curtain wall is?) and learning about many of the time's occupations.  From illuminators to queens to midwives to goldsmiths, there were jobs quite similar to jobs of today and some very, very different! Ask your child if they could pick any job to have in the Middle Ages what it would be!  

A few jobs from the Middle Ages!

Parts of a castle!

We have moved on from patterns, although we've been noticing that patterns are all around us!  So, even though we aren't officially studying patterns, we find them in books, on our socks, in our study of castles and on the playground!  Our MATH time now focuses on developing and strengthening our sense of numbers.  For some, this means learning to count one object at a time..for others, this involves counting and comparing groups of objects...while others spend time learning to use our base ten blocks and compare  2 digit numbers using < and > signs!  We are learning many new games to help us practice these skills.  Compare is a great game to try at home.  It is very similar to the card game "war".  We've been using number cards 2 through 5 or 2 through 9 (whatever is just right).  Some of us have been turning over just one card and comparing the single digit cards, while others have been turning over 2 cards to create double digit numbers to compare.  After each player turns over one or two cards, the players then look at all cards and the player with the highest number says "me!"  All cards are placed together in a discard pile (there is no winner in this version).  Play continues until all cards have been used!   We are also all participating in number writing practice!  It can be tricky to know which way those numbers should face!   

This seems like a good time to describe the handwriting program we use at OCS (for letters and numbers)!  Just hearing the word handwriting may bring back memories of writing letters over and over until your hand felt like it would fall off!  (Well, ok, that's my memory...hopefully yours is different!)  We use a program called Handwriting WIthout Tears, which I really like.  The program was developed to simplify handwriting.  In this program, all of the capital letters are formed using only four strokes...a big line, a little line, a big curve and a little curve.  Putting these strokes together in various formations gives us all of the capital letters!  For example a big line and 2 small curves make the letter B.  I have wooden blocks representing each of these strokes that we use to build the letters.  We also practice on chalkboards (with chalk, cloths and sponges).  Our handwriting practice on paper focuses on the "less is more" motto.  Handwriting is part of our Tuesday/Thursday literacy center routine.  Oh, one more thing that's really neat about this program...the letters are grouped based on where they begin.  Right now we are focusing on all the letters that begin in the upper left hand corner of our chalkboard, with a "big line down".  Knowing where to begin a letter helps tremendously in preventing reversals!

Handwriting Supplies

Handwriting is just one small piece of our LANGUAGE ARTS studies.  On Monday and Wednesday, we have Writing Workshop.  During this time kids choose topics to write about and write at their "just right" level.  Right now, many are creating books of things they like!  From butterflies to dresses to toys to smelling flowers...there are some many things to like!  Our literacy centers include handwriting practice, phonics work and reading groups.  Some are working on learning to recognize letter names and sounds, others work on solidifying the names and sounds of letters, while others work on solidifying a recognition of beginning blends (sl, bl, gr, etc.).  This is a great time (11 to 12 Tues/Thurs) to volunteer, if you'd like to see what's going on in the classroom...I will set you up with your very own center!  Right now, I have this time covered with work study students, but they will be very appreciated in the other classes if you'd like to join us!

I hope you've had a chance to see some of the beautiful ART we are creating!  I am so enjoying having our class decorated with such creativity!  Here's a sampling for those of you that don't make it in to the classroom very often:  

Inspired by our study of patterns and our read aloud "Catwings"!

Self-Portraits!

 Fall Leaves!

Book Owls!

Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful children with me!  Happy Fall!