Nature in the Neighborhood with Brett

On Friday afternoons all the children had a chance to make a microscopic slide, put it on the stage, focus the microscope and change the magnification of the microscope. They were then asked to draw the images they saw. Older children used stains (iodine and onion cells) to make their slides more visible. Our goal was for all the children to be able to use microscopes independently and self select things to look at.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon

During Read Aloud, the 5th - 8th graders listened to "Where the Mountain Meets the Moon" by Grace Lin. In this story Min-Li, a young Chinese girl, becomes a hero as she travels to find her family's fortune by talking to the Man in the Moon. Along the way she learns many good lessons about life and makes some wonderful friends.

The 3rd and 4th graders read this book in a book club and had many great discussions about the wonderful similes and metaphors that Grace Lin used in her writing. The book club also enjoyed drawing pictures of where Min-Li's travels took her during her journey.

Integer Class

The oldest group of students as well as a few 5th graders, participated in a three week integer class. We started with the basics of the number line and what lies to the "left" of zero. We then moved on to adding and subtracting with positive and negative numbers. When we moved on to multiplying and dividing with positive and negative integers, students realized that the same "rules" held true with relation to what type of answer would result with 2 positives, 2 negatives, or one of each. Students are now practicing their skill in their math books.

Solar System

The youngest students in Kindergarten and 1st grade learned about our solar system for the Science Celebration this year. As a class, we read picture books and watched two Magic School Bus videos. One video was about Comets and Meteors and the other about the planets. We had lively discussions about why Pluto wasn't considered a planet anymore and learned a Solar System song to the tune of "This Old Man." With partners, students studied more closely two planets, the sun, moon or stars. They used the information they gathered to make a poster for the Science Celebration held in the beginning of March. Students also created 3-D models of their planets with papier mache. Although the models weren't to scale AT ALL, students made very deliberate efforts to choose the colors they thought would fit their planet(s) best.

Sledding

Martin, a fifth grader, proposed a day of sledding at school. Teachers took his idea and made it a reality. During investigations the whole school took off to the golf course down the road for an afternoon of fun! When we returned, we had cookies (made at school by the children a few days earlier) and hot cocoa! Thanks for the good idea, Martin.

Lewis and Clark

The middle group of students (grades 3 and 4) have been learning about Lewis & Clark's journey west. They have also learned about some of the Native tribes they came in contact with, such as the Sioux. Books, supporting our study, were taken home. At school children listened to picture books about the journey, discussed the things that were packed and the hardships that the Corps of Discovery encountered. Students will be playing a student made Lewis and Clark game on their contracts in the next few weeks and will also be viewing a National Geographic DVD that recreates part of the journey.

The Fledgling Book Club

The older students were part of an eight week book club where they read The Fledgling by Jane Langton.
At the start of the book club we set up expectations. All book marks needed to exhibit responses that were Detailed Articulate Thoughtful and Exemplary (DATE).
Each week children were responsible for bringing to class two examples of author's craft. They had to share the examples outloud and explain why they chose it. As the weeks rolled by we gained increased appreciation for Langton's descriptive and poetic writing style.
Each week the students had another assignment that focused on figurative language, personification, point of view, characterization and/or setting. These observations supported the discussion around their fiction writing assignment.
At the end of each class children graded themselves on a scale of 1 - 10 for their efforts.

Writing Prompts

Working with Jeff Simmons, a parent of one of our students who teaches creative writing at Syracuse University, the older students were given two writing prompts which launched them into many weeks of writing fiction.

"Not all stories have good characters, but most good stories have vivid characters that the reader feels they know almost immediately." Students were asked to develop two characters, distinguishable from each other, and were encouraged to write about them separately, using descriptions of who they are, the places they've been, the things they haven't or have done etc.

The second writing prompt was about setting. "Equally important to story is setting - that is, the time and place that the story takes place. Whether the story takes place in a mythical place like Narnia, or in our world, the reader has to believe in the place enough to want to stay there." Students were asked to put their two characters someplace where one or both of them doesn't want to be.

The children were very motivated to write their stories after having invested two weeks developing character and setting. They developed stories about a lonely boy befriending a dragon, a girl who is saddened by the sudden moving away  of her best friend, a hard working father who looses his job at the mall and lies to his wife, Charlie and his friend with no name, Mart and Sam's search for the Grand Apple Tree, and Lily and Martian the iguana who escapes from the zoo.

Poetry

Inspired by Kenneth Koch's Rose, where did you get that red?  book the older students spent a month studying the poems of Wallace Stevens: Thirteen Ways to Look at a Blackbird, John Ashbery: Into the Dusk-Charged Air, and Arthur Rimbaud:  Voyelles. Kenneth Koch's prompts for children are both motivating and creative. Our final poem was inspired by our study of the Reconstruction period. The children were challenged to write a poem about "Freedom." 

The River by Andy Zamora

As the river throbs on hitting rocks, and flowing over white with foam,

No one knows the name,

No one really cares,

Tuck between the evergreens, far from any city, any means of civilization,

Only deer and elk come to its waiting shores,

Lost to the wilderness,

The unknown river throbs on,

The wolf trots in the edge waters fallowing it prey,

With the moon glistening above,

Like a thousand stars in one,

In the day the sun beat down, as the animals emerged from the pine and Burch,

and wade in it cooling waters,

and the unknown river throbs on.  

Vowels by Zerbie Hynson

A feels like Tuscan red, like the slash of a laser sword, like leaping the tallest building in a single bound.

E feels like a crescent moon, like a very bright, light yellow, like a purple roly-poly elephant.

I feels like light green, like a leaf blowing in the wind, light shining through it like a stained-glass window.  It feels like the way the buttons on an arcade game click when you press them.

O feels like black, like a rocket blasting off into space, into the stars.

U feels like an assortment of bright, vibrant colors set against a dark background, like a skateboard half-pipe, like a yo-yo or a spinning top.

Different ways to look at a book by Sam Pullman

A book

A book is like a world

unfolding before your eyes

a book is like

a being

explaining itself.

A book is like the only diamond

in the

modern world.

A privilege is a book

no book can be

a punishment

A book is a magnet

drawing

drawing

Freedom by Bobby Simmons

Freedom

Animals have the freedom

To be released into the

Lush forest, green meadows

Tan fields, rocky mountains

Sandy beaches, and blue waters

They have the right to be

In the night sky, the Sandy wastelands, and the dead trees.

Animals have the right to survive

In whatever environment they need.

Six ways to write a poem by Emmy Newman

The moon rises like a silver ball.

The cat pounces on the

ball of yarn they roll

and roll and roll away

the dolphin drifts to the sky

and lands lightly back in

the water

the river slides along the

valley like a blue snake

The fluffy cloud gets

Brown across the sky

A tree stands like a

Tall man with green hair.

Xerox

On Wednesday mornings small groups of children in need of phonemic awareness instruction met to work on blending sounds on a soundboard. The children made words on their boards where only one sound changes at a time. This fall and spring they worked on CVC words with initial and final blends, (words like stamp, spill, gift) and silent-e words (such as like, hope, cape, tune, eve) To practice these skills they played games such as Blend Go Fish, Blend Bingo, Silent-e Go Fish, Under the Sea, and Pirate Keys. Once a week the children were also part of a dictation class where they had to write words or sentences using these spelling patterns. 

Ancient China

Third grade students created a China poster describing four aspects of Chinese culture. They were able to select their own topics from a list that included the Silk Road, Chinese religions, Architecture/Homes, Clothing, Silk, Dynasties, Food/agriculture, Art/Music, and Inventions. For each topic they needed to include an illustration and a short typed paragraph.

Ancient China

Ancient China

Our study of Ancient China continued through Chinese New Year, 2011. The youngest children explored the world of Ancient China in many different ways.

The children visited Syracuse University to make paper. After selecting a Chinese character, which they practiced using black ink and brush pens, they drew their character on the handmade paper. These were framed and given as Chinese New Year gifts to families. The children wrote and performed a play based on the Chinese story, How the Rooster lost his horns.

Children studied and colored, using colored pencils, a map of China, locating its deserts, rivers, mountains, seas and plains. Discussions focused on what each landform was, what is a legend, the compass rose and what effects such land features might have on the people of China?

Our next unit focused on Chinese fairy tales. We read Lon Po Po, by Ed Young, and Yeh Shen by Louise Aling. The children were quick to recognize both stories as Chinese versions of  Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella. Children compared and contrasted these stories and discussed how it could be that countries so far apart could share similar stories.

Finally the whole school listened to more than ten picture books about ancient China. While listening children made observations which were recoreded on a chart about architecture, clothing, food, government, religion and recreation. They also looked for examples of dilemma, symbols and metaphors.  Some of the titles we read were: Night Visitors, The Artist and the Architect, Red Thread and the Eyes of the Dragon.