Geology and Mary Poppins Jr. Play
/Landon’s grandpa came in to show us his extensive coin collection last week. He has collected coins from all over the world.
This week we had the opportunity to watch a local production of Mary Poppins, Jr. at Theatre in the Grove. We were so impressed with the acting, singing, set design, and sound effects. As actors ourselves, Otters could appreciate the amount of hard work and practicing it takes to put on a performance- especially a performance that is an hour long! What a treat for us for us to get to attend this play.
We are currently immersed in our study of geology. We now have hundreds of rock samples in our classroom. Several adults have loaned us their special rock collections- collections that have taken years to acquire. We have been examining the rocks and talking about how rocks form. We learned that geologists classify rocks by the way they form. We are learning about sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks. We did a science experiment to create our own sedimentary “rocks”, and an experiment to that involved making a peanut brittle volcano to see how igneous rocks form. We read about rocks and began formulating questions to ask during our interview with a geologist next week. In addition, we created pet rocks to use in our imaginative play and in our story writing. Our rock unit will continue over the course of the next two to three weeks.
As a community of readers we continue to spend ample time each week reading. We visited the library this week, read with our Dolphin buddies, and enjoyed reading in the beautiful sunshine.
Other highlights from this week include Scratch Jr. Coding with Adam, purchasing ice cream in the Otter ice-cream shop, and examining our trout alevin. Otters are becoming increasingly skilled at finding the mistakes that teachers intentionally leave in the morning letter each day. We are having some great conversations about spelling, word patterns, grammar, and punctuation. Otters have been using logic and strategy to play Mancala and Dragonwood. In our outdoor classroom this week we found some beautiful butterflies. We are using field guides to identify the insects we find. In writer’s workshop we are continuing to work on our graphic novels. We have been developing characters and plot, and using rulers to sketch panels. There has been a happy buzz during writing time as students excitedly share their work.
