 |
| The optimal goal of educational lessons is transfer. It's the idea that what is taught will be applied to new situations. A few weeks ago during our Social Studies lesson we mapped our school forest trail (see older posts). This week D.V. brought in his own map of the ski trail his family uses. This is the kind of stuff that makes a teacher glow. |
.jpg) |
| Jabba-the-Hutt or Snowman? It's all perspective. |
 |
| Making beads was the final activity. Tomorrow we will paint them with water colors and the kids will take them home. They will have the option of creating with them and then entering their projects in the Science and Art Fair next month. |
 |
| Our new science/engineering unit calls for young "chemical engineers" to make playdough and compare its properties to commercial Playdough. After much scientific investigation and vocabulary building, it was determined that our new playdough was equal in every category except color (which the class decided would be fixed next time with food coloring or paint). Most participants felt our dough had a more interesting scent, like bread or yeast. Move over Hasbro and 3M! |
 |
| While vacationing in San Francisco, we visited Chinatown. We were fortunate enough to be there during Chinese New Year! Wow, dancing dragons, firecrackers, and great food everywhere. I picked up these red envelopes and put pennies in them for my students. Since we are learning about cultures and traditions in Social Studies, I gave each student one and greeted them with "Gong Hey Fat Choy". Red envelopes for good luck and coins for a prosperous new year. |
 |
| Our Junior Great Books volunteer led his group discussion of the "Emperor's New Clothes". He asked the group to work in pairs and design the clothes the emperor could/should have been wearing. Great story, great message, great follow-up. We love our volunteers! |
 |
| For the last few years we have made Valentines for our heroes, the Veterans. We want to express ongoing thanks for their service and to let them know their sacrifices will always be important. We will mail these off tomorrow to the V.A. Hospital. |
 |
| We had all kinds of adjectives to describe our snow people. They ranged from super-duper to demanding to carefree. Lots of cool descriptions. |
 |
| In Social Studies we have begun studying maps. We decided to map our School Forest trail. We hiked around and made a rough sketch (just like the original map makers did). It was a nice day so we could store our mittens in our trail boxes while we drew. We roughed in our favorite features. |
 |
| These nifty boxes were made by an eagle scout in our area. They are perfectly designed to carry our tools inside and clip our work to the outside. The handles make them easy to carry. |
 |
| The final products reflect our goals for this activity. The maps have a title, a key, and all the main features. Lots of learning for first and second graders. |
