Stocking the Quabbin

The most of exciting field trip of the year was in early April. We start at Gate 8 with Clif Read and meet with Jim Legacy and Ken Simmons. We learn about introducing children to fishing, a gateway activity for many other outdoor activities. Each child has the chance to empty buckets with several rainbow trout into the reservoir. At the end the truck shoots the remaining trout into the water to the excitement of all, including an eagle flying overhead! We eat lunch on the lawn by the Visitor's Center at the main gate, and then visit the trout hatchery where children feed the fish in the tanks. We also saw the truck being refilled with fish for another trip to the Quabbin.

Pattern Block Puzzles

In our geometry unit we looked at building patterns with different blocks that create the same shapes. The picture shows this being done with pattern blocks. We also created equivalent shapes with geometric solids. We went on shape hunts around the building, searching for cones, cylinders, spheres and rectangular prisms (among others). We played Fill the Hexagon, a game that lays the foundation for a later understanding of fractions. When we finished this segment we created a poster of all the combinations that are the same as the hexagon.

What's Inside Our Bodies?

We have been very busy learning about our internal organs and systems over the past two months. Our buddies have been a tremendous help in moving this project along. Most recently they have been helping us research different systems in the body as we prepare for our presentation at assembly. We have learned about our brain and nervous system, respiration, circulation, digestion, reproduction, elimination, muscular and skeletal systems. We plan to finish the model of our bodies with the addition of the rib cage tomorrow.

Our Grocery Store

Thanks for all the "food" you sent in for our grocery store. We spent a few days pricing and setting up in early January. We kept prices based on pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters and used real money to make our purchases. Children quickly learned who could help them identify the coins. In the spring we will study coins in more detail, when we break out the magnifying glasses and draw pictures of what we see. Children had fun shopping, bagging and stocking shelves. Some children used their charge cards!

There are lots of new postings. Check them all out!

Buddies

At the risk of repeating ourselves, buddies is the highlight of the week for many children in our class. We were particularly impressed recently to realize that our children were able to quickly choose a game and sit down to play with each other. This seems to be a direct result of the time our buddies have put in teaching games to the kindergartners.

In addition the library apprentices invited the kindergartners to the library for lunch a week ago. While there, the apprentices read to the children, giving them a flavor of some of the book clubs that are available to the older children. Thank you Marcia and the library apprentices!

Celebrate Reading

Dr. Seuss's birthday is March 2nd. On Tuesday, March 1st we will celebrate with lots of Dr. Seuss activities. One example is drop what you're doing and read. The library is often set up with activities for kindergartners and their 6th grade buddies to share. The kindergartners are often the best at answering questions about Dr. Seuss's books. We have been doing lots of rhyming activities in preparation for March 1st. We are writing a book called Terse Verse which asks children to create two word rhymes. We will publish this and have it available in the classroom. We're also working on booklets where we fill in the rhyme using picture clues.

Double Compare

Hmm...which is more 5 and 6 or 6 and 5? Each child who looked at this question counted up the number of images on the two cards to decide which group is larger. In double compare each child turns over two cards and compares their own total to their partner's total. Many children use cubes and build their two numbers with cubes. They can then compare their tower to their partner's tower to determine which is more.