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.

Money

1st graders were given a magnifying glass and asked to compare and contrast dimes, nickels, pennies and quarters. They played games such as “Race to a Quarter” and “The Matching Game” which gave them practice trading coins (5 pennies for 1 nickel, 2 nickels for 1 dime and so on.) In Matching Game they became quite adept at selecting a coin only be feel from the inside of a sock! Independently on their contracts they completed a work job called “Scoops of Coins.” For their final assessment students were asked to figure out how many different ways you can make 25 cents. 

The Periodic Table

The older students spent four weeks studying The Periodic Table and creating a Wanted Poster for an element of their choice. We introduced the project by listening to Tom Lehrer singing "Elements," his well known song where he rattles off all the elements of the Periodic Table. Students had to research their element and creatively include the following information on their poster - its atomic symbol, number, weight, an interesting fact, the element's uses and chemical state. On their contracts students completed a word search of all the elements, timed themselves on how long it took to put together a magnetic puzzle of the Periodic Table and completed a matching game which reviewed all the new vocabulary of the unit. During snack they watched and responded to a video "Atoms and Molecules."

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.