Industrial Revolution

In January the older students started learning about the Industrial Revolution, which first took place in England and later in America. We soon learned how inventions (like the steam engine, cotton gin, spinning jenny, flying shuttle, railroad and model-T) ignited this revolution. America began to change from an agrarian society to an industrial society and factories sprouted up all over the country. Students were assigned to read books such as Factory Girls, Counting on Grace and Trouble in the Mines, which focused on the appalling conditions children, were subjected to in factories and how people like Lewis Hine and Mother Jones championed to protect them. After taking part in a simulation of the monotony and repetition of working on an assembly line we looked at films that showed how Henry Ford invented the assembly line. Later we will learn about the industrialists who amassed great fortunes and the birth of the labor movement. 

Decimals

Students in grades 5 and 6 were part of a Decimal class based on the teaching of Marilyn Burns. To ensure students understood the relationship between decimals and fractions students used tens blocks to represent wholes, tenths, hundredths and finally thousandths. Playing games such as Sum and Difference, Decimal Wipe Out, Smaller to Larger,  helped children practice comparing, ordering, adding and subtracting decimals. Soon students will work on the relationship between fractions, decimals and percent. 

Listening Center

Once a week the youngest students listen to a book on tape. As they listen they copy the title of the book and start drawing a favorite scene in the book. More recently children have been asked to write one or two sentences. Some of the titles they have listened to this year include: Thidwick the Big Hearted Moose, Blueberries for Sal, Snowy Day, The Velveteen Rabbit and A Chair for My Mother.

Fall 2012 Read Aloud

Every day we end with a relaxing twenty minute Read Aloud. Our groupings change according to the content of the book. This fall we split into two groups. The older children (in grades 3 - 8) listened to J. R. Tolkein's The Hobbit on the upstairs rug. This book completely captivated our students, so much so that we are creating with paper mache and paint a three dimensional "Hobbit World." When finished this transformed washing machine box will provide hours of imaginative play for the whole school. After finishing the book the whole school enjoyed watching an animated version of the story.

The younger students (in grades K-2) listened to a variety of books including Warton and Morton by Russell Erickson, and all three books in the My Father's Dragon series by Ruth Stiles Gannett. Most recently we read The Troll by Michael Berenstain.

During Read Aloud children can draw in their sketchbooks, or just lie and listen. Every book we read generates rich discussions about character, plot and vocabulary. It is a lovely way to end our day.

Scientific Problem Solving and Experimental Design

For the first part of the year, the oldest students were part of a unit where they explored the scientific approach to problem solving and experimental design. Throughout the unit it was stressed that there are many different problem solving models. First students watched a video and discussed The Pellagra Story which showcased how Dr. Goldberger used the scientific method to observe and collect data about pellagra and how he came to his conclusion about its cause. Then they took part in a simulation of a clinical trial to investigate how medicines are tested. The class pooled their results and drew conclusions based on the data they collected. In our discussion key vocabulary was introduced: hypothesis, inference, control, evidence, variables, placebo, sample size, simulation and trade-off. Students discussed the ethical issues introduced when humans are the subject matter of a scientific study. Students conducted two other tests, for which they had to form a hypothesis, and analyze data collected. One experiment investigated why sensitivity to touch varies in different parts of the body. The second experiment explored whether the ability to catch a ball increases when using two hands as compared to one hand. For this experiment students had to identify all the possible variables such as catching with left hand or right hand, how good the thrower is, how high the ball in thrown, distance between the people, ball size etc. Finally as a conclusion to the unit the students designed their own experiment testing a single variable. Students had to consider how many trials they would complete and identify whether they had collected qualitative or quantitative data. 

Australian Aboriginal Art

To kick off a yearlong appreciation of visual arts from around the world we first looked at the word “continent.” What is a continent? How is it defined? We soon discovered that people around the world do not all learn that there are seven continents. Some places teach there are 5 continents with North America and South America combined as a single continent called the Americas. We also discussed how if we believe “a continent is a large, discrete land mass separated by large bodies of water” there are only four continents:  Antarctica, Australia, Americas and Afro-Eurasia.  We discussed how many people consider geography, politics and history when deciding how to split our world up into continents.

Our first stop is the continent of Australia. Here we looked at the art created by aborigines, most notably their amazing dot paintings rich in color, pattern, and symbols. Children, in grades Kindergarten through 8^th grade, created their own dot paintings using dowels of different sizes and tempera paints. 

Haiku

Students from 1^st to 3^rd grade were introduced to haiku and the proper method in which to construct these poems. As a way to assist them in understanding the syllables that are found in haiku, students were in various activities in which they were able learn about syllables. These activities were syllable name clapping and sentence word generating. Once these were complete, the students were asked the next week to create a haiku. The elements that were necessary were the 5-7-5 syllable structure for the three lines of the poem which had to be about nature. On the final week of the class, all of the students were able to share one of the poems that they wrote to the class and showcase their ideas. 

Biomes

For this class, all of the 3^rd grade students learned about the ocean and the connection the creatures of the sea have to the land. They first watched a Bill Nye video talking about oceans. Then, the students created a food chain based off of sea animals that they knew. After that, they were read The Deep Sea Ocean, by Sneed B. Collard III and completed worksheets that described new fish that they learned about. In addition, they included what they wanted to know more about in regards to the ocean on the worksheet. Fourthly, the students worked in pairs to discuss the impact of the humans on the ocean and ways in which to limit these problems as a whole group. Finally, as a way to see what they learned from the ocean unit in terms of describing a biome, students were put into pairs at the beginning of the unit and they each picked a biome to research that they had to give a presentation on, and create a physical structure that accurately describes the biome.