Decimals

The oldest group of students has been reviewing decimals for the past few weeks.  We went over how to add and subtract by lining up our decimals and how to multiply and divide with decimals.  Long division with decimals is a long process!  Next we're heading into the realm of integers.

Cutting Book

The youngest students have been working on a cutting book during journalling time once or twice a week.  This activity has focused on cutting out pictures from magazines and pasting them with the correct initial sound in the alphabet.  Students then have to write neatly what the picture is, cut that name out of the paper and paste it near the picture.  As we fill up our book, students are finding it difficult to find pictures for some of the less used letters like x and q.  Some great picture and word combination have been "cousins", "bear claw" and "spy gear".  The students are very creative when it comes to what the pictures are of and where they can fit them into their books.

Howard Gardner

This fall we wanted to generate a discussion based on Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences. We started off the discussion asking the question, "What do we mean by intelligence?" which led to an animated discussion about how everyone has strengths and weaknesses.  We talked about how one goal of The New School is to help children get better in areas they find hard or challenging but to also encourage them to blossom in areas where they excel. Children were given a personal survey which asked them to answer over thirty questions yes/no questions. For example: "I enjoy  indiviudal sports best." "I often have a song or piece of music in my head." "I find it easy to make up stories." or "I am a very social person and like being with other people." After totaling their scores they discovered the higher the totals in each column the stronger their abilities were. A lively discussion followed as children shared whether they were primarily word smart, number/reasoning smart, picture smart, body smart, music smart, people smart, self smart or nature smart. A week later we grouped children according to their areas of strength and asked them to list the ways we help children improve this "smart" at school and to suggest possible careers they might consider. For example the "body smart" children identified gym, basketball, walking, playing socer and dance as things we do at school to get better in these areas and some potential careers might be gym teacher, karate teacher and carpenter.  

Daily Journal Time

Everyday children have half an hour of writing time. Sometimes this is used for printing practice, phonemic  instruction, spelling, and writing workshop. Every week children have time for free writing.  Children can choose to write by hand, use an alphasmart or type on the computer. Younger children can dictate their stories.

Rooster Play

In early December the youngest children performed a play based on the Ancient Chinese story of how the rooster lost his horns. Ladies and Gentleman.

We are glad you are here to watch our play. The play was a collaborative effort, with each child adding details until we told the story. The children spent weeks making their own costumes and props. The play was performed for the older students.

This is the story of how the rooster lost his horns.

It is a story from Ancient China.

Let me first introduce the actors in our play. Please welcome:

Syris is the sun

Mae is the rooster

Sam is the cow

Ben is a ghost

Greer, Brandon and Max are the dragon

Lola is the worm

Maia is the barn

Alaira and Gulliver are horses

Jonas is the scarecrow.

And I, Ace, am the narrator.

We wrote this story together.

Let’s get on with the show.

Once upon a time shadows moved in the barn. There are horses and cows in the barn.

Bar-B-Q, the rooster, had the prettiest horns in the world. The rooster was walking about admiring his horns. All of the animals were asleep and the dragon came closer and closer to the barn and he was breathing fire. The dragon lived on Mount Olympus.

It was a cloudy night and it was ready to rain. The scarecrow was scared. The rooster was going around in circles. The dragon said to the worm, “Ask for the horns. I want those horns.” Then it started to rain and it washed the dragon’s fire away. The rock glistened in the rain as the worm slipped by.

The worm said to the dragon, “Don’t breathe any fire.” Suddenly a bright light came on. It wasn’t the light it was the sun. The cloud went behind the sun. The worm asked the rooster if he could borrow his horns. The rooster replied, “Will you give them back to me?” The worm said, “Yes” The worm took the horns from the rooster and then the dragon flew away with the horns.

The rooster was very upset.  The rooster did not know what to do, so he decided to wait. The rooster saw the worm and yelled, “You nasty worm get back here.”  And he chased him around the barn. The rooster called at the dragon as he sailed by but soon the dragon was out of sight.

The End

Probability

I have been teaching probability over the past 5 weeks to students in grades 5 to 8. Throughout those five weeks, even though some have been short, we have covered a significant amount of content. The students have dealt with both theoretical probability and experimental probability. They have dealt with the concepts of flipping a coin and rolling of the dice through both worksheets and games/activities. To introduce the idea of probability to the students I gave each student a package of skittles and asked some simple probability questions to get them interested in the concept. Recently, we have talked about independent and dependent events. As we are finishing up the unit the students will be required to take a 10 question test on what they have learned. Dan Trahan

Physical and Chemical Changes, Acids, Bases and Salts

In science class, students have been learning about physical and chemical changes as well as acids and bases. We have learned about the characteristics that provide us with evidence that either a physical or chemical change has occured. We have had labs that dealt with testing multiple solutions and the students were required to record observations and to decide whether a physical or chemical change has taken place. In regards to acids and bases, the students have learned what the term pH means and why scientists use pH levels. In our labs we have tested mutliple solutions using cabbage juice as the indicator to decipher if the solution was acidic or basic. - Dan Trahan