Thirteen Colonies and American Revolution

Five kids from our middle group of students have taken part in a social studies class on the Thirteen Colonies and American Revolution. They began the unit individually by researching explorers who traveled to the new world. As a class, they began researching the colonies of New York and Virginia. A large focus of class was on reading for information and sharing strategies that work for locating and interpreting information. Each student chose one colony to research and present to the class. They learned about who founded their colony and where the founders immigrated from, what opportunities the people of the colony were looking for, if the people had interactions with Native Americans and what the interactions were like, what the climate was like and what daily life was like for children, women and men in their colony. Each student wrote about their findings and started their own Colonies and American Revolution book! The students made a Colony Puzzle in class that they put together to practice naming the colonies and their geographic locations. They added pages to their books by learning and writing about important figures, events, ideals and causes of the American Revolution. They ended the unit by studying the Declaration of Independence, focusing on why it was written and what exactly, it declared. 

Electricity and Magnetism

The students in 3^rd and 4^th grade spent eight weeks studying electricity and magnetism. One objective for this unit was to prepare the students for an upcoming Read Aloud, The Boy who Harnessed the Wind. This touching autobiography tells how at age 14, in poverty and famine, a Malawian boy built a windmill to power his family's home.

Before reviewing how electrical currents work, children were asked to share what they already knew. Some wrote, “Electricity makes things go.” Another wrote “You need batteries. You need magnets and you need wires.” We studied a modern light bulb, drawing what it looks like and we made our own one. In our own light bulb we tested a variety of materials as filaments to see which materials would glow and why! To answer the question, How does the flow of electricity in a series circuit differ from the flow of electricity in a parallel circuit we removed one bulb.  Figuring out why the other two lights remained on in a parallel circuit was a challenge.

When we switched to magnets and magnetism we again asked children what they already knew. “You can create magnetism.” “South and north on a magnet will stick together and south and south or north and north will not stick together.” Then we posed the question, “How close to a paper clip does a magnet have to be before the clip moves toward the magnet? We also compared how one, two or three magnets behaved. Were they stronger when working together? As in all hands on activities there were lots of opportunities to expand our understanding. Often we did this by asking questions such as: What is happening as you move the magnet toward the paper clip before the clip moves? Why are we experimenting three times and then averaging the results? How many millimeters are there in a centimeter? Using iron filings we found it fascinating to observe and draw the magnetic fields around bar magnets and circle magnets. We worked to make our own compass and explored how it works.

The final part of this unit involved BOTH magnetism and electricity. We made our own battery powered compass and finally created an electromagnet.

Multiplication

In late March children in grades 2 and 3 started a Multiplication unit and how it is just another word for repeated addition. Children worked on highlighting the multiples of 2’s, 3’s, 4’s on a hundred’s chart. Quickly children were able to see the patterns. For example they noticed that on the x 2 page “all the digits in the ones place are the same in each column,” and that “all the multiples are even numbers.” While the children continue to highlight multiplies of 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 and identifying patterns, they will be playing multiplication games such as Tricky Triangles, Cover 50, Multiplication Pairs, Count and Compare and Pile Up to familiarize and memorize of these facts.

Fractions

In January children in grades 2 and 3 started a unit exploring Fractions. First we made our own Fraction Kits, by cutting strips of paper into halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths. Then we made thirds, sixths and twelfths. Then we were ready to play games using our kits. We added fractions, subtracted fractions, compared fractions and discovered many equivalent fractions. We also explored different ways to make a whole and using parquetry pieces created designs showing many creative designs for “One half yellow.” In our Fractions are Fun packet we practiced these skills and also worked on finding a fraction of a number of objects as we colored ¾ of 16 objects blue. Some of us even began to add and subtract fractions with like denominators.

Measurement

From November through December a group of seven children in second and third grade studied measurement. We first brainstormed some of the many ways we measure things – such as length, weight, capacity, temperature and time.

We started out studying length by asking what is length? How could we measure the length of the hallway? We decided to do this with our bodies and soon the discussion focused on how inaccurate this measure was because our bodies are different lengths. And so we started using a meter stick, a yard stick and a measuring tape.  We practiced these skills on our contract by completing a Meter Scavenger Hunt and an Inch/Foot Scavenger Hunt. Later we turned our attention to weight and weighed objects in grams, kilograms and pounds and ounces. We asked the question, which is bigger a gram or an ounce? When we explored capacity we compared containers of various sizes - pints, cups, quarts and gallons. By pouring sand into the containers we learned that 2 pints of sand fill 1 cup and 2 pints of sand fill 1 quart. Finally we looked at the thermometer and how we measure temperature in both Celsius and Fahrenheit by comparing the temperatures outside and inside the building.  And we searched for the hottest place in the school and the coldest.. We were good at that! Next year we will look at metric measurements of capacity.

War Horse Book Club

A small group of fourth and fifth graders decided, after reading four short novels by Mildred Taylor that they wanted to continue with the book club and read another book together. They all voted to read the book at home. And so I selected a favorite book, War Horse by a favorite author, Michael Morpurgo. “In 1914, Joey, a beautiful bay-red foal with a distinctive cross on his nose, is sold to the army and thrust into the midst of the war on the Western Front. With his officer, he charges toward the enemy, witnessing the horror of the battles in France. But even in the desolation of the trenches, Joey's courage touches the soldiers around him and he is able to find warmth and hope. But his heart aches for Albert, the farmer's son he left behind.”

While reading this beautifully written and emotional novel, students practiced using the reading strategies first introduced while reading Mildred Taylor’s books. The additional practice helped them further develop their questioning, making connections, and visualizing skills. They also used fix up methods, built vocabulary using context clues, and used visual text clues to figure out meaning.

After finishing reading the book we all watched the Stephen Speilberg film version. While this was an entertaining film, many questions were raised as to why the screenwriters changed Morporgo's text. Was it for the better or worse?