Sam Van Aken and his Tree of Life

On Thursday, October 30, Sam Van Aken was our third mystery guest of the year. Sam created, using grafting, a tree that can bear 40 different kinds of stone fruits. The children asked their yes/no questions and quickly determined Sam had come to share something about trees. But then we challenged them, in the remaining minute, to figure out his specific interest in trees. Asher, one of our older students, had his hand raised for a good 30 seconds before Sam called on him. Asher nailed it by asking Sam, “Do you cut a part of one tree and add it to another one?” Sam proceeded to explain how he got started six years ago. After learning about an orchard at the NYS Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, which was home to over 200 varieties of plums and apricots, he began experimenting with "sculpture through grafting." We will take all the children to SU’s campus in the spring to view one of Sam’s trees planted on SU’s quad.  We can’t wait to see the tree in its multi-colored splendor. Some of us will return in the summer to sample some of its fruit!

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2014/08/trees_40_fruits_sam_van_aken_syracuse_university_food_inspiration.html

Margaret Bourke-White Field Trip

On Thursday, October 16, 2014, nineteen of our oldest students visited Syracuse University’s campus to view Margaret Bourke White’s exhibit of 180 vintage photographs taken in the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Germany, England and Italy in the 1930s and 40s.

Prior to our field trip, Andrew Saluti, Assistant Director to SU’s Art Galleries, visited The New School as a mystery guest, and then proceeded to share with the school the significance of Margaret Bourke White’s work – her passion for photographing industry, people, and her documentation of World War II. It is hard for today’s youth, familiar with instant access to information, to grasp how Bourke-White’s photographs in Life Magazine informed the world. Andrew was also able to show and explain how different the process of taking photographs was in the 1930’s. Children were also amazed to learn how large her camera was! Andrew is gifted when it comes to engaging children of all ages in a sophisticated topic. His presentation was masterful.

At the exhibit, the older children used Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) to study two photographs. The discussions that ensued were facilitated by graduate students in SU’s Museum Studies program. Finally, students were given time to view the entire exhibit and to identify photos they found especially meaningful. We are indeed lucky to have such resources in our community and couldn’t be more grateful to Andrew for hosting such a rich learning experience for our students.

Geometry

Our 5th graders have been working on all facets of geometry lately.  They started with reviewing polygons during class and individual time on their contracts.  They played games such as: Guess My Rule and Get it Together Polygon 1-4.  The challenge lately has been measuring all types of angles using protractors.  An angle hunt around the school was in order to get kids up and measuring.  Using Power Polygons, we have explored area in square inches and will be moving on to using the algorithm of Area=base x height for a rectangle and having students discover how to use this algorithm to find the area of a triangle.  Students have also recently been challenged to classify triangles by their sides and angles.

Place Value Fun

Seven 3rd and 4th graders have been working hard in a place value class that has also integrated multiplication.  We started with talking about skip counting on the 100s chart and what numbers would land us exactly on 100.  We learned that 100 has the factors of 1, 100, 2, 50, 4, 25, 5, 20 and 10!  We've also been working on landmark numbers and how to use those when figuring out factors of 200, 300 and higher numbers!  We will be working our way to 1000 soon.

Xerox - Learning to Read

To assist children learning how to read, we offer small group instruction that focuses on the six syllable types. Using Road to Reading, and Wilson Language, each week children receive instruction that meets them at their instructional level. Typically children meet in small groups with a teacher three or four times a week for 20 – 30 minutes each. Students manipulate letters on a sound-board to make words which change one sound at a time. For example: (hat, hit, hot, not, cot, cat, mat, map, mop.) At other times they play games (such as Go Fish, Bingo, Word Sorts and board games) to practice these skills. In a third session they are asked to write words, sometimes sorting them into columns (such as short a, short i, short o), sometimes writing complete sentences.  Finally each child reads one-on-one with an adult to practice these skills in context.

Currently we have four groups of children benefitting from this program. We have early readers working on cvc syllables with blends and digraphs (such as lift, glass and ship). A second group is working on reading cvce syllables (such as cake, bike). Another group is working on two syllable words and words with vowel teams which make one sound: ay, ai, oy, oi, oa, aw, au and ee. Finally, a group of older students who have been introduced to all six syllable types are working on decoding multisyllable words and words with endings such as -ed, -tion, and -ture. 

Writing Workshop with Dana

We are working on short story structure:  beginnings, middles, and ends. We have been discussing character motivation, dramatic conflict, and how to resolve things in an interesting and satisfying way.  It's a challenge to structure imaginative worlds, and it takes a lot of focus to show a dramatic arc in a compressed form. Our goal is to have the students publish their short (under five pages) and completed stories in a class literary magazine by winter break. 

Cursive

Students in 3rd and 4th grades have been working on reviewing all of the lower case cursive letters from the clock climbers to the hills and valleys.  As we finish up our lower case letters, students have been challenged to write two words in cursive, switch with a partner and print what their partner has written.  This is the real test - if someone else can read your writing!  What fun it has also been to practice our cursive in our pen pal letters that will be heading to Michigan shortly.  Next it will be on to capitals and practice, practice, practice!

Civil War Class Visits the Onondaga Historical Association

       The oldest group of students are taking part in a social studies unit looking at the causes and events leading up to the Civil War. This is a continuation of the Westward Expansion unit they completed last year. They have had remarkable discussions about what freedom is, what you can own and about slavery. They have learned about the economies of the north and south and the different ways of life and beliefs that existed at this time. They created maps showing triangular trade and read a short story about The Amistad. They have currently been participating in activities learning about the abolitionist movement and the Underground Railroad.

All the students will be taking part in a book club reading Two Tickets to Freedom, a true story of Ellen and William Craft, fugitive slaves.
To build upon their knowledge of the abolitionist movement, they took a field trip to the Onondaga Historical Society. Their day at the OHA started with a discussion about the conditions of slavery while they looked at artifacts and tools that would have been used on southern plantations. The students viewed carved faces found in the basement of The Wesleyan Methodist Church, a hideout on the Underground Railroad. Together, the students concluded that the faces were carved by fugitive slaves traveling to freedom on the Underground Railroad, although it is still unknown who exactly made the carvings.

  They watched a multi-media presentation where they met life size cut outs of individuals such as Frank Wanzer, a fugitive slave who found refuge in Syracuse with local abolitionists such as the Loguen family and Gerrit Smith. They also heard from David Noxon, an anti-abolitionist. They took part in a walking tour of downtown Syracuse showing local landmarks of the Underground Railroad and abolitionist movement. The tour stopped at the Wesleyan Methodist Church (now The Mission Restaurant) where the carved faces were found. They visited the site where Fredrick Douglas first spoke in Syracuse, the location of the escape of then slave, Harriet Powell, the sites involved in The Jerry Rescue and many more historical buildings and locations.

       The students then took on the roles of local abolitionists attending an anti-slavery meeting led by Samuel May (our tour guide Scott Peal). At this meeting Caroline Loguen (Toni Jones) shares the story of The Jerry Rescue and how 19 people, one including her husband Reverend Loguen, were arrested for aiding in the escape of a slave. The students, as abolitionists, shared their testimony of The Jerry Rescue and thought of ways to help Reverned Loguen and the others.
This is what the students had to say about their day at the OHA and what they learned:

“I didn’t know that Frank Wanzer existed or that the Loguen family existed. I knew about Noxon but I leaned about those two families and that the Loguen family had a safe house and Frank Wanzer was an escaped slave.” -Ace

“The Jerry Rescue sculpture was interesting. Jerry broke out and was trying to run away. He ran a few blocks and got caught again. The girl who made chocolates made more money than the president at that time.” -Neona

“The basement under the church was part of the underground railroad and the faces that were carved in the stone were found there. We are not sure if the faces are of slaves who died there.” -Nora

“I didn’t know churches could be so small. They didn’t build giant structures in that time period. I like that. Syracuse actually did something in history. Syracuse was known for salt.” -Asher

“I learned how people hid out in churches in Syracuse. That runaway slaves hid out there. Are Jayhawkers the same as abolitionists? Yes, I think so.” -Agnes

“The walking tour was really cool. There were so many places in just a couple blocks that had to do with slavery. I thought it was really cool and interesting but also sad. The faces found in the church was really interesting. That people would carve faces to show that they were there. Its cool that they were able to do that in a dark room. Some lady made chocolates with her own recipes. She sold them all over syracuse and bot bigger and bigger. As a slave she made chocolates and then she wasn't a salve anymore and got really wealthy and had a lot of chocolate stores.” -Marina

“I learned that when slaves reached into the cotton plant to pick it they got their hands cut. I learned that Syracuse was a hot bed of abolitionists.” -Maia

“I learned that lots of things from a long time ago, that they kept them and preserved. Like the book that said that white people were better than black people and that everyone believed it. And the key from the jail that Jerry was in was cool.” -Juliette

“It was cool because we know what everything looks like now and it was cool to see what has changed and what buildings are still here. The church is still standing but it’s a restaurant now. I wish they would have kept the door to the jail so they could show that they key actually fit the door. I noticed that one of the streets we crossed was Montgomery, that reminded me of Jayhawker. They said Syracuse was a hot bed of abolitionists. There were hundreds. Obviously more than a lot of cities. I wonder if the Loguen family still lives in Syracuse.?” -Jonas

“I knew the restaurant, The Mission, was there but I didn’t know that was the same church that had slaves staying in the bottom of it. I didn’t know there were abolitionists who lived in the south.” -Jake

“The history of where we were walking is amazing. The history is somewhat bright. Like Frederick Douglas’s first anti-slavery speech in Syracuse. It’s impressive that he started out talking to 5 people and ended with 500. I wish he was still alive so I could send a letter to him. Syracuse was famous for it’s salt.” -Josh

“I didn’t know there were so many abolitionists in Syracuse. It was like they lived everywhere you looked.” -Ben

You can view all the photos of the trip to the OHA on our flickr site. https://www.flickr.com/photos/20502001@N00/

Layers of the Earth

The youngest group of students has been learning about the layers of the earth.  We started off our unit by reading parts of Gail Gibbon's bookPlanet Earth/Inside Out and How to Dig a Hole to the Otherside of the World by Faith McNulty.  As we learned about the many layers, we made small models out of clay and are in the process of making LARGE cardboard models that will include the many layers as well as what we can find on the crust of our earth.  As we finish up our earth models, we have gone on to read and learn more about how magma comes up from one of the layers and out of volcanoes!

Upper Case Printing

Working once a week with our youngest children, we have studied and learned how to form the capital letters A through E. While this sounds like a simple task, there are many things to consider. First of all where to start the letter? This is hard for some youngsters who are used to forming their letters from the bottom. Other things to consider is that  our letters have to be written from left to right, and each child has to consider spacing between the letters. Then they have to consider the size of the letter and work hard to make it fit between the lines. Some children struggle with how to hold their pencil. In the coming months we will work our way through the alphabet and then return to learn about the lower case letter formations.