Froglets and More

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We continue to be fascinated by the amazing life bursting forth all around us. Yesterday we noticed a beautiful moth in our outdoor classroom. We worried that one of its wings may have been damaged. We are hoping it survives. Inside at our nature table we discovered that many of our tadpoles have developed front and back legs. One was even climbing the walls of the aquarium today! Students have been experimenting with an iPhone camera to take close up photos of our froglets. The frog photos below were taken by student photographers. When we were straightening up our outside classroom on Friday, one of our stumps split in half and we discovered a tiny world inside that single stump. We even found several egg sacs!

Our days at school are filled with joyful exuberance. On Friday we got new class books from our book orders. We read several books about inspiring individuals. During our choice times this week students continued to work on their Rube Goldberg contraptions, play chess, design figures out of natural materials, and construct three dimensional structures outside. During numeracy this week Pod 2 is exploring fraction concepts and Pod 1 is working on mental math strategies and building large numbers. Pod 1 is learning how to play Yahtzee too. This game is not only great fun, but it also helps students develop number fluency with addition and multiplication. Students are beginning to work on their Google Slides presentations about their inspiring individuals. This week we also get to write birthday letters to Ryker and Jackie! During our science explorations this week we are building and designing various structures. Yesterday students designed tin foil boats. They used their money counting skills to count how much money their boats could hold before sinking. They compared and contrasted different design ideas to determine which worked best.

More Rube Goldberg Documentation from Mr. Mark

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Here are more photos and videos from last week’s Rube Goldberg explorations; courtesy of Mr. Mark. These projects continue to evolve each day as engineers return to try out new design ideas.

First Rube Goldberg Tasks

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Our first Rube Goldberg-inspired task was to create a contraption with three separate steps that would knock over a lego person. Students drew plans and implemented their plans. They negotiated and had to overcome many obstacles to get their contraptions to work. One group decided to create a Rube Goldberg contraption that would trap a stuffed hedgehog under a box. Below are some of our Rube Goldberg videos. Some videos are in slow motion, by student request. More will be posted as I receive them from Ms. Siera and Mr. Mark.

Warm Fuzzies and Google Slides

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Student authors have been hard at work on their biographies about inspiring individuals. Some authors even wanted to bring their research notes outside to continue their work during outside choice time this week! Students meet briefly in their peer review groups every 2-3 days to receive feedback and work on editing their biographies. Over the next couple weeks teachers will teach individual students how to use Google Slides to prepare a presentation about their inspiring individuals. Students are becoming quite proficient at technology as they learn to utilize Google slides, math applications, and online research articles. Outside today we noticed a sneaky squirrel that kept returning to our bird feeders to eat all the seeds. We also noticed that our roses are in full bloom. Yesterday, we were surprised to see hail covering the ground! There’s never a dull moment as we explore the beauty of nature. This week a student brought in a fossil to share with the class. We also started a warm fuzzy box at school. Throughout the school day students are invited to write warm fuzzies for each other. At the end of the day we distribute warm fuzzies. It’s been exciting to see new friendships developing between different students this week. Every day we work together to create a loving community and help each other’s brains continue to grow. It’s been rewarding to see students helping each other with editing, writing ideas, math concepts, reading tricky words, and inventing new games to play together. What a pleasure to get to end the last weeks of the school year together and in-person. This is something we do not take for granted. 

Launching Rube Goldberg Unit

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This morning we noticed that some of our tadpoles have grown back legs! Our tadpoles are much bigger than they were last week. This week during choice time our mathematicians are practicing their coin counting and making change using the following apps: Motion Math Pizza and OSMO Pizza. Other mathematicians are practicing their math facts using the apps Mathmateer and OSMO Genius Numbers. This morning Pod 2 finished reading a biography about Beverly Cleary called Just Like Beverly. Several readers chose to read a Time for Kids magazine issue about NASA. During outside time we planted more lupine and milkweed in our meadow area. We got to watch bumblebees visiting the lupine that was already growing in the meadow. We noticed that some of the lupine is taller than us! Nora found a beautiful spiderweb covered with dew drops. A couple other student scientists found a leaf covered with interesting “blobs”. They speculated that the blobs could have been eggs, poop, or seeds. This morning we kicked off our Rube Goldberg mini-unit. We examined some of Mr. Goldberg’s machine drawings. Then we watched a video about creating your own Rube Goldberg contraption. For added inspiration we watched an incredibly complex OK Go Rube Goldberg Machine video. Then students made teams and began planning their own Rube Goldberg style contraption that would contain three or more steps, and would culminate in knocking over a Lego character at the end. Tomorrow we will start building our contraptions. In reading today students revisited their genre graphs to analyze how they are doing reading books from a variety of genres. Several reading groups made goals for the week that focus on expanding their genre selection this week. Other reading groups began using genre graphs for the first time. We went on a tour of our classroom library to see where we could find all different types of books. We also met in peer review groups at writing time and continued our Inspiring Individuals research projects.