Bill Peet Author's Study

April 17, 2011
Dear followers of the famous Bill Peet,
We, the following students at The New School, (Ciara, Savannah, Greer, Mae, Autumn, Alaira, Emmy, Bobby, Monae, Sam and Ace) spent ten weeks listening and discussing Wump World, Farewell to Shady Glade, The Ant and the Elephant, and The Wingdingdilly.
• We liked how Bill Peet makes up a lot of words (Savannah)
• We liked how he uses the different kind of trees, like bumper shoot trees (Bobby)
• We liked how he combines animals together to make a new one (Mae)
• We liked how he puts a lesson in his books to teach you what is right. (Savannah)
• We liked how he used his imagination (Alaira)
• We liked how he put scary things in, like when he was walking through the dark forest. (Monae)
• We liked how he uses suspense. In the Wingdingdilly we don’t know what is going to happen to Scamp. (Savannah)
• We liked how he writes about a lot of animals like Scamp the dog, the Wumps, and he even combines them together. (Ciara)
• We learned that Bill Peet likes to write about animals and how their habitats get destroyed. (Emmy)
• We noticed that he is a good thinking (Lola)
• We learned that occasionally he uses poetry. (Savannah)
• We learned that Bill Peet cares about the environment and taking care of it. He shows people that we are destroying the environment and what happens to animals when we destroy it. (Autumn and Bobby)
• We learned that animals are good. (Sam)
We are grateful to Bill Peet for writing such great books. We hope you will love his books. They are great.

Eric Carle Author's Study

Recently at snack time, the students have been exploring the different styles of author/illustrator Leo Lionni and Eric Carle. The students with desks upstairs have been reading and discussing the similarities in styles of Lionni books such as Tico's Golden Wings, Fish is Fish and Pezzettino. One of the themes that students discovered is that all of the Lionni books we have read include something about friends. There is also usually some type of problem between the friends, but different ways of dealing with those problems. Students were so excited to share that they had some books at home, and some brought a few in to share. Those books were shared with peers and put on the library shelves for all to take a peek at. We'll be wrapping up our Author Study next week with one last book and some information on Lionni's life.

Earth Day

Earth Day fell during April Break this year, so a week later we brainstormed ideas on what we could do to help care for the Earth. We came up with lots of ideas and ended up with students collecting trash, sweeping the parking lot, raking leaves, cleaning up flower beds and creating posters. We spent our investigations time doing these activities to "make the world a better place." The afternoon activities culminated with a parade down the street with posters asking people to "Honk" if the loved the earth. Students counted 85 honks and were excited to get others involved in our Earth Day efforts.

A Grain of Rice

The book club for A Grain of Rice has been unique in that students did not read the book individually during silent reading. The book was read aloud as a group twice with the goal of creating a script for a puppet show which the students will be performing. The first reading students took turns reading from the book aloud focusing on characters and setting. The second time through each reader highlighted the text that each character said (a different color for each character). This required noting when a character is talking and the function of quotation marks. Students also underlined with pencil any actions that the puppets would need to act out. Each student then had an opportunity to type some of the script while going through the story a third time. Puppets are complete, finishing touches are being put on the script and the show is shaping up nicely.

Reconstruction

In February nine of the oldest students started a Reconstruction unit. First we went back to the Declaration of Independence and the students were asked to rewrite one section in their own words:
We hold these Truths
to be self-evident,
that all Men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are
Life,
Liberty
and the Pursuit of Happiness

This is what the students wrote:
We consider this to be true (Sam)
And to as obvious as the sky is blue (Zerbie)
That everyone has equal rights (Savannah)
They were gifted by God (Martin)
With certain irrevocable rights (Andy)
Within these are (Emmy)
Living (Nick)
Freedom (Bobby)
Be happy is the most important thing to do because people cannot live if they do not enjoy their lives. I think that happiness is the goal of everybody in the society because it is the reason of life of people. I know that if I was not happy in my life I do not want to have a life. I am happy when I know that people are happy too. I think that to be happy we need to listen and to understand others. (Quin)

Then we reviewed when and why the document was written. After we started discussing the word “freedom” children were asked to think about what freedoms they feel are important. They each had to complete the following: Freedom to do…. Freedom to be…. Freedom to have… Freedom from…… This led to a discussion on what can a person own.

The History of US video series prompted great discussions and the children were asked to take notes on nine important events during Reconstruction: 14th Amendment, Emancipation Proclamation, 13th Amendment, Freedmen’s Bureau, Ku Klux Klan, 15th Amendment, Black Codes, Impeachment of Andrew Johnson and Jim Crow.

Finally each students was assigned a different historical character to research. At the end of the unit students took on the role of their character – presenting a brief biography and their opinions on the nine events they had previously researched.

Chicken Science

The Kindergarten and First Grade science class has recently been learning about chickens.  Students have explored the life cycle of the chicken, looked at and ordered the 21 days it takes to hatch a chicken egg, and named the parts of a chicken egg.  We've also read great books on chickens and had discussions on where chickens live, what they eat and how they reproduce.  Students have had a chance to read some chicken books to themselves and with their reading partners during silent reading.  As a fun break to our most recent science class about other animals that lay eggs, students engaged in a lively rendition of the "Chicken Dance".

Nature in the Neighborhood with Brett

On Friday afternoons all the children had a chance to make a microscopic slide, put it on the stage, focus the microscope and change the magnification of the microscope. They were then asked to draw the images they saw. Older children used stains (iodine and onion cells) to make their slides more visible. Our goal was for all the children to be able to use microscopes independently and self select things to look at.