February 10, 2009 Our elementary classes have been busy preparing for the science fair. This year our topic is "Science in Virginia," which corresponds with our year-long study of our home state. We have projects on native plants and animals, the rivers, the Chesapeake Bay, bridges, etc. Some of the first-year students have been passionately identifying the trees outside our classroom - matching the leaves, bark, pine cones, and acorns to the scientific illustrations in our reference books. Students are discovering the usefulness of our animal and plant classification folders as they classify their organisms from kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, to species. One of the older student's study of coal took her back to the Timeline of Life to look at the Carboniferous Period, when coal was formed. Mr. Smith has even been involved by taking some of the boys out to observe and identify the types of bridges in our area.
During writing workshop we have studied meter in poetry. Older students are now familiar with iambic pentameter, trochaic, and anapestic feet. The entire class studied the ballad stanza and worked in pairs of younger and older students to practice creating their own quatrains. The older students wereIn math the younger students are working diligently on learning to exchange categories for addition and subtraction. They are also memorizing their multiplication facts. The decanomial square, which demonstrates all the multiplication facts of 1-10 and then turns into squares and cubes of 1-10 with our beautiful beads, has been a common sight. 3rd and 4th graders have been squaring sums with bead bars and also on graph paper. They have also been learning to measure angles and identify vertical, complementary, and supplementary angles. Older students have been practicing order of operations, squaring, and square root.
During reading time, we have been enjoying Young Joan, a novel of historical fiction based on the early life of Joan of Arc. We are getting a glimpse of the Hundred Years' War between France and England as well as the spiritual life of young Joan. There was even a story about villages dying of a fungus on the rye flour used for bread-making, which tied in with our earlier study of the Kingdom Fungi. able to guide their younger companions through the process of creating 4 lines of poetry which alternated with 4 feet and 3 feet and had an abab rhyme scheme. As one of the 6th graders remarked upon hearing a 2nd grader's poem, "We have some amazing writers in here."
In math the younger students are working diligently on learning to exchange categories for addition and subtraction. They are also memorizing their multiplication facts. The decanomial square, which demonstrates all the multiplication facts of 1-10 and then turns into squares and cubes of 1-10 with our beautiful beads, has been a common sight. 3rd and 4th graders have been squaring sums with bead bars and also on graph paper. They have also been learning to measure angles and identify vertical, complementary, and supplementary angles. Older students have been practicing order of operations, squaring, and square root.
During reading time, we have been enjoying Young Joan, a novel of historical fiction based on the early life of Joan of Arc. We are getting a glimpse of the Hundred Years' War between France and England as well as the spiritual life of young Joan. There was even a story about villages dying of a fungus on the rye flour used for bread-making, which tied in with our earlier study of the Kingdom Fungi.
December 2, 2008 Our class study of Virginia has led us into the Revolutionary War. At the same time we have been reading Mr. Revere and I, written from the viewpoint of Paul Revere's horse. We have learned about the Boston Massacre (which really was not a massacre, but used by the colonists as propaganda) and of course, the Boston Tea Party. The older boys are busy working on a time line of this important era of our history. A time line calls upon the students' abilities to work together, figure things out, argue, quit and re-organize, disagree and compromise, divide up the tasks, etc. In short, they use everything they have on this type of project.
The younger group is busy with the verb grammar box, reading the sentences, acting them out, and then finding the parts of speech. They are also practicing singular and plural nouns, nouns of gender, and common and proper nouns. They have been making lists, topic sentences, supporting sentences, and finally paragraphs. Some of them are dividing by 3-digit numbers with the racks and tubes. Some are learning to add and subtract abstractly. They are all reading large numerals into the millions and multiplying on the checkerboard. They are also working on sewing projects for the holidays.
Many students are engrossed in the squaring and square root work from the first lessons on squaring with the golden beads to squaring fifteen with 225 green pegs to squaring 4-digit numbers and finally to doing this work abstractly at the 6th year level. Division is also visible at all the levels with the first-year students dividing with the stamp game and learning their facts, the 3rd years learning to leave the materials behind, and the older students working with multi-digit divisors and decimals.Animal studies are a frequent choice of students of all ages. We have short reports on horses and dogs, squirrels, and various dinosaurs. After a review of the five kingdoms of life, the older students launched into animal classification, learning about the various phyla, classes, orders, etc. This work will continue with their own attempts to classify various animals. All these projects include drawings, paintings, and sculptures with clay.
The next few weeks will be spiced up with holiday preparations, but you are still invited to join us for an observation.
October 20, 2008
Our younger students are proud of their writing journals, using them to practice their lovely cursive letters, words, poems, and even stories. They have had several lessons on nouns and articles, punctuation and capitalization rules, and spelling patterns. Many of them have learned to crochet in the last few weeks. They have enjoyed writing through the millions with the large bead frame and learning to read large numbers with the checkerboard. Drawing prehistoric plants and animals from the time line of life is a popular activity. They are busily learning to recognize music notes and intervals; they are also making music with the hand drums and xylophones. One of my favorite parts of working in the elementary class is seeing the delight of our students as the older ones help the younger ones with reading practice, math facts, or even geography lessons. Much more than academics is involved.
Returning students have jumped back into squaring 3-digit numbers on the pegboard, which has led us into square root earlier in the year than I had anticipated. There have been lessons on angles, circumference, congruency and equivalence, diagonals of quadrilaterals, and of course, fractions.
Our history focus is the state of Virginia. We have had numerous stories about Jamestown and the tribes that the English settlers met in the early days. We learned that a major Indian village was in the very spot of our present capital city. The older students returned from their two-day trip to Jamestown, Yorktown, and Williamsburg inspired to learn more. Reports on wigmakers, blacksmiths, printers, silversmiths, and colonial soldiers are in progress. One student has already constructed a model of the Jamestown settlement and has a timeline in the works.
Art lessons have included gesture drawings, still life pastels based on our study of Paul Cezanne, and watercolors of leaves. We have also studied the life and work of Edward Hicks whose actual paintings we had the pleasure of viewing at the AbbyAldrichMuseum in Williamsburg. We have also started sewing squares for a simple quilt, and a few students are learning to knit.
Besides learning to read music, we also sing daily in our classes. We have been learning some very old songs, some that may have even been sung in Jamestown. "Billy Boy" is an old English song with a question and answer pattern that the children enjoy. "Clementine", "Cockles and Mussels", and "Polly Wolly Doodle" are some of the others we are learning.
As the younger students have been studying the Sun and Earth, the older students have had review lessons on the FiveKingdoms, as well as new studies on Phylum Mollusca and the FungiKingdom. They have used the mollusk game with younger students and have also created a fungi game themselves. They have also shared their knowledge by taking the younger students outside to find and sketch specimens from the FungiKingdom.
While reading to the children from Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer this week, I wondered if the children could appreciate the story as much as my generation did. Their comments and requests for more took away my doubts. Perhaps those of you who join us for observation in the next few weeks can enjoy Tom also.
