Perserverance

We have been reading books in which characters show the trait of "perseverance."  After reading and discussing several books, the children explained what perseverance is, why it is important and how you persevere.  Their words are captured on the picture of the poster below.  One child exclaimed during our discussion, "nothing would get done without perseverance!"  We brainstormed ways that we could do "positive self talk" to encourage ourselves to persevere.  Their talking bubbles are shown  in the 2nd photo.

Valentine's Celebration

The pictures say it all.  What could be more fun than 6 and 7 year olds exchanging cards, thanking each other and enjoying treats.  Happy Valentine's Day!  (We know that there was a lot of support to get all of these cards made.  Thanks!)

Cold Days!

What a cold couple of weeks we have endured!  Here are a few scenes from indoor recess that are all a bit blury due to the fast movement of the children.  With music playing, they created their own conga line through the classroom.  In the last photo, they are following a dance video projected onto our white board from "Let's Dance for Kids."  We are trying to move, stay warm and have fun.

Hands On Nature: Squirrels

This month we learned all about 3 squirrels commonly found in Vermont: the grey squirrel, the red squirrel and the flying squirrel! Students learned about the physical characteristics of each squirrel, what they eat, where they make their nests and what time of day they are most active.

Students were able to examine actual skulls of small rodents, learning how the size and shape of teeth can determine their diet. 

It was very exciting to be able to touch some actual squirrel pelts and tails!

A huge thank you to our volunteers!!

The Number Line

Recently, we have been developing deeper number sense through the use of an open number line. Students are grappling with where to place certain numbers based upon their relative position to numbers already on the line. For example, the number 10 may be placed directly after 0 if we are counting by 10's. But there would need to be a space between 0 and 10 if we were counting by 5'5.

Counting forward and backward by 10's is also reinforced through games during workstations.

Hour of Code Photos

Engineering

After investigating the different properties of sand, humus and clay, we put our knowledge to work to answer this question:  What material should the town of Shelburne use to build a sea wall to protect the playground area from the water below.  We built models out of sand, humus and clay, put our models outside overnight to expose the walls to the natural conditions, and then simulated the lake water hitting against each wall.  We had hypothesized that the clay would hold up and were surprised to find out that the humus held up well too.  The sand wall collapsed.

As groups of children constructed the walls, other budding engineers were tackling another building problem.  What is the tallest structure you can build with marshmallows and toothpicks?  This challenge was harder than we expected.  We learned a lot from our experience which we would like to apply to more building projects.  Many children wanted to try this at home (dry spaghetti pasta works too).  Perhaps there will also be time during the upcoming vacation for more engineering.