We Honor Our Veterans

When I asked our class if anyone knew or was related to someone who has served in the armed forces for our country, almost all of them raised their hands.   Most had proud stories of heroism.  Many has stories of relatives who were harmed or wounded while serving.   Having a son who has been to Iraq twice and Afghanistan once, the stories coming from the mouths of babes were moving and humbling. Again I was reminded that our freedom is not free.

Nature on the Trail - Busy Beavers

As you may have seen on earlier posts, our School Forest has also become the home for beavers.  They have flooded about half of the eight acres.  They have thwarted our attempts to drain their pond with clemson levelers.  Our School Forest Committee took some time Tuesday to break up part of the dam and let the pond begin to drain.  

After work on Friday Annette and I checked the trail to see if the beavers had repaired the damage done by our handiwork.  This is what we were met with.

Hands-On Science

We have been busy young scientists.  We read Dr. Seuss's Bartholomew of Oobleck and then second graders made Oobleck.  They pondered the properties of solids and liquids as they played with the odd mixture.  The next day they used the properties of solids (flexible or rigid) to construct the tallest tower possible.  

First graders made sand clay and sculptures. (Whoa, the mess!)  Yesterday they moved on to comparing sand from different beaches and generated ideas about why the sand would be so different.  

From Ducks to Turkeys

Kids never get enough time to paint.  We were lucky enough to have a parent help out on Thursday. My only directions to the kids were:
1.  Paint a turkey.
2.  Try to use the whole space.

The results were amazing.  

Move over, Picasso!

Duck Weather

Wow, the weather has changed.  Yup, it's November.  I planned a great outdoor activity and couldn't wait to get muddy, but then the wind switched, temps dropped, and the fog rolled in.  I thought, "Hmmm... let's just skip it."  Then I came to my senses.  Hello... it's not -20.  Just do it.  

We began our FOSS studies with containers and hand lenses while in the classroom. Once we had the basics, we headed outside.  We got to the trail and 8 ducks took off from the pond with a thunderous quacks and flaps.  We got right down to the nitty gritty of making bricks.  We used earth materials to squish and mush into foil pans to make our bricks.  We ran and laughed and splashed.  

Our units of study are Solids and Liquids (grade 2) and Pebbles, Sand, and Silt (grade 1).  Trust me when I say we could not have gained such insights indoors.

This duck didn't seem to mind us too much.

Halloween Fun and Learning

Our holiday activities are fun and filled with learning.  We started with the art concept of print making.  We drew fences with rectangles, squares, and pentagons.  We dipped apples in orange paint and printed the pumpkins.  After the paint dried, we finished the backgrounds.  

Each face was funnier than the last.

Scary, right?

We cut a slice from the night sky.

We made shape witches from a right triangle, rectangles, circles, and hexagons.


We learned about:
print making
songs and poems and rhyming words
shapes
planning and organization 

We added some "learning targets" on the back along with the words to the song and poem.

Look What I Made with a Leaf

We read this book to get some background knowledge about trees and leaves.  We went out on the trail with a science mission, get leaves of varying sizes and leaves from the two main categories of trees.... broad leafed and conifers.  

We brainstormed ways of sorting our leaves.  We came up with size, shape, tree of origin, color, texture, and the two main types of trees.

Each student measured his/her longest leaf in centimeters (new to first graders) and recorded the data on the board.  

Finally we used our leaves and creativity to make amazing artwork.

Math, Science, and Art concepts all in the same lesson....FABULOUS!