waves of whales!

We've been reading about the whales in the sea and using our whale models that are to scale with each other. The children painted these whale cutouts to look like their corresponding models. With the help of their teacher, several children figured out the size of a person next to the whales. That inspired some to improve upon the scene by drawing and cutting out people to swim among the friendly giants. And hearing about the practice of whaling for blubber and whale meat prompted the addition of "no whaling" signs to be posted in the ocean!

And whenever I teach about whales (especially the blue whale) who swim in the northern ocean hunting for plankton to sweep into their baleen-filled mouths, we talk of the blubber that insulates the whales from the coldness. I always have this little demonstration ready for them :

Put a lot of vegetable shortening in a heavy plastic quart bag. This will be the whale's blubber. With your hand inside another heavy plastic sandwich bag, push into the shortening-filled bag to form the shortening into a 1 1/2 inch wall under and on all sides of your hand. Make sure no shortening oozes out of the top of the bag or gets on your hand. Remove your hand, leaving the bag inside the bag holding the shortening.

Have a large bowl of ice cubes and water ready. Each child puts a hand inside the clean bag stuck into the shortening bag. You place their hand in the bag in the "blubber" inside a half gallon plastic bag (to make sure no water gets inside their hand or the "blubber"). Now push their hand in the bag in the "blubber" in the large plastic bag down into the ice water. Surprise!

the portrait artist

Of course, school has ended and the summer session is on. But this happened just after Fair Day. One of the treats given by PoDS was the presence of an artisit who tirelessly drew a portrait of every single child in the school. Each child took their turn sitting in front of her as she drew child after child. The scene inspired one of our young men to do the same. His classmates were happy to sit for him. It's always a renewing affirmation to see children of this age (five and six years) with enough confidence and minimal experiences to be unafraid of the outcome or the criticism of others. It's equally pleasing, then, to see how uncritical and accepting the class was with his efforts!

money money money

Here are two activities that we used to help teach about money. Our money stamps are kept on a tray that shows their matching coins, their values and names. I make up little books with an amount written on each page. The children love stamping the appropriate coins on the page.

The next picture shows the money game. From midyear until the last day of school, it proved to be fun and challenging. Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters are separated into compartments in a tray. In the center is one dollar coin with a small booklet showing various coin equivalents. To make the booklet, I used the money stamps to show that two nickels equal one dime, two dimes and one nickel equal one quarter, etc. A child throws one dice then takes that number of cents. For example, if the dice shows a five, the child may take one nickel or five pennies. As coins are accumulated they should be exchanged for coins of higher value. The goal is to have four quarters, which are then exchanged for the dollar coin. The first to get the dollar coin is the winner. Since this is mostly a game of luck, all of the players have a fair chance of winning. In our classroom, children of all levels enjoyed this game. They get great practice with counting, addition, counting by fives and tens and recognizing the coins and their values.

And probably the most important lesson learned in this type of game is sportsmanship. Initially, a few children would get distressed upon losing the game. A teacher or a sympathetic classmate would sit with the players to help them keep track of their turns, use the little book of coin equivalences and remind them to exchange smaller coins toward the goal of quarters. Because of the luck factor with the dice, cooperation between players and peers is fair. In our class, the children seemed to realize this themselves, as there were many happy games with helpers nearby.

Only one more week of school. I don't like to think about it. I'm going to miss every one of the children in our class. Thinking back to the first weeks of school last September, it's hard to imagine that these are the same children. We've seen them mature into responsible students, develop their skills in reading and math beyond expectations and we've enjoyed the blossoming of their very varied personalities. I can't think of a better or more interesting group of people with which to spend my time.
These last weeks have been a surge of activity. Bead chains are being recounted, spelling quizzes are requested, the garden is still being planted and dug and finger paintings are produced. All this to the tune of Raffi's Like Me and You, often heard sung in the background. And the whole school seems to have picked up Y A Un Rat, the little French song that the class sings.

After showing the class comparisons of the pink tower and the brown stair, several children came up with their own.










Subtraction using the fractions is a popular activity.




How many cups make a pint? How many half cups make a cup? We are finding out.


A few weeks ago we read two books on Amelia Earhart. The children liked hearing about her independent personality and her busy youthful life. Some made their own Parts of an Airplane book by tracing the plane on our light table.

We've been talking about India lately. Using these little factual books that also show how to draw the animal, many of the children are drawing tigers and Indian elephants. They have a kurta to try on and and a child-sized turban and sari to wrap onto themselves. We have Hindi numbers to practice and stories to read. We smelled some Indian spices and ate some mango.

We did get back in the garden last week, ridding it of practically all those pesky weeds. The peas, lettuce and radishes have suddenly grown with all this rain. As soon as it dries a bit we'll be back to digging compost holes and planting more seeds. The children feel really good seeing the result of their work. They are careful with the baby plants, taking care to point out what is growing to children from the other class. They treat every pill bug, worm and centipede with care. Last week one boy cautioned his classmates to be gentile with the bugs by stressing several times, "They are defenseless!"

The children didn't get to work in the garden last week, but hopefully, they will tomorrow. Meanwhile, some of the children have been interested in planning road trips with the help of our Highlights highway map of the U.S. Others have been exploring the properties of magnetic attraction between metals, other magnets and through objects. Yet others are excited about solving 4 X 4 KenKen puzzles.
Mrs. T. has taught the whole class a lovely song about global living. Each child has worked on flags representing the 24 countries in the song.

Today we talked about India; the foods, the Hindi language and its influence on our language, numerical system and culture. Then we shared a mango.

In the next few days we'll talk about some of the animals of India, try some of the clothes of India and hear about some of the customs of India.

The radishes are growing. . .

and so are the weeds. We're not certain if the lettuce seeds have sprouted or if we just have a zillion new little weeds. We'll wait and see. E.W. is holding one of the garden's residents. The children were happy to get back out in the garden after so many days of rain and wetness. We used the rainy days to plant pea seeds in a glass inside our classroom. They have already sprouted, letting us see the root growing downward and the stem growing upward. Yesterday, they grew another inch. The first leaf was unfolding today. We also have a radish, a carrot and an onion planted inside glass tubes, hoping to see how they will develop under the ground.

Between the garden and the fence is a small area where the children can use shovels to dig holes. We try to respect the worms that we encounter, realizing that they are living creatures and that they help us in the garden. We already used 2 of the holes to hold the compost the class has been collecting from their lunch and snack scraps (fruits, vegetables and egg shells only).

Now it's a garden.

We planted radish and lettuce seeds last week. Then we watered, then hoped for rain and on Friday, it did! Just to see how dense the weeds population was, here's another picture of the weeding process. Without 16 weeders this would have been a much more tedious job.

After raking away the old mulch, each child placed a brick or two to form a path. Here are some of the boys finishing the path by filling it with the old mulch.

We have a bin with 1 Sharpie pen, lots of plastic markers and the seeds. I showed them the seed packets. We saw the long thin lettuce seeds and the little round radish seeds. We read that the lettuce had to be planted 1/4 inch deep and the radishes at a 1/2 inch depth. I wrote "lettuce" on a popsicle stick and made a line 1/4 inch from the end. I did the same for the radish seeds, but with a 1/4 inch mark on it. I put the seeds in little containers to keep them from spilling out. Each child dug a little hole with our tiny cultivator, checked its depth with the popsicle gauge, planted 2 seeds in the hole (just in case) and wrote what was planted on the plastic marker. Each planted 2 lettuce and 2 radish seeds. Now we have a garden full of plastic markers.