Tuesday, October 8, 2013

116, bilingual second grade- We continued our portrait paintings.  We're probably only going to need a week or so longer and these will be ready to be displayed.  Our next project is going to be a classroom mural about our community, so the portraits might pop up in the mural once we get it finished!

118, monolingual second grade- I noticed that the sunflower we studied a few weeks ago is now in a state of decay.  Mrs. Chowaniek and I agreed that we should discuss it again, linking the word "decompose", which they are studying in math class, to the sunflower.

T: I looked at the sunflower and saw that it was different.
Why?
S1: It shrunk.
S2: It's getting older. It's breaking down.
S3: It's breaking apart and really old and rotten.
T: Any guess why it would break apart?

S3: It's older it's breaking apart and its old and nasty.

More comments: 

It's moldy.
It's dying. 
The mold is like rust- when you leave your bike outside, the metal parts get rusty. The mold is like that.
It's mushy. 
It's old.

T- The mold means it's getting old?
The mold means it can't survive anymore. 
The marshmallow part is getting old and the seeds will fall out.

T- You can't feel it, because I'm worried about mold allergies, but I can feel it. It isn't moist any longer.
What does moist mean?
T- It means wet.  It doesn't feel wet anymore.  It feels dry.
It looks like when you leave a banana peel out. 

T- Do you think these changes are a bad thing? 
It is bad because the sunflower is dying.
I think it's good because when the sunflower dies, then the seeds can make a garden.
It's both bad and good because the sunflower is getting old and rotten, but it's good because the seeds mean we can have a new garden.

T- There is a word you are using in math class that begins with a "D" that describes the process this sunflower is going through.  Does anyone know that word? 
Death?
Decay? 
Depose? 
Decompose!
It's rotten, like when you leave a banana outside and it turns black. 
It's turning black, too.

T- Tell me about the mold.
It looks fuzzy.
It looks like a banana that is black and brown.
It looks like a spider web.

T- How did the mold get there?
No one really understood where the mold comes from- they just kept commenting that it was part of the death process. 

Student- Why do plants die?
Teacher has other students answer.
So they can regrow again.
T- How?
We can put the seed back in the ground. 
T- Could we do that while these seeds are still in the sunflower.
No. We put it in a hole in the soil with water and sun.
T- So, should we be sad that this flower is decomposing? 

It's not really sad because plants are not a part of your family and they are just for decoration.
And food.
And nectar for the bees.

Mrs. C- What might an animal in nature do if it tries to eat the moldy flower? 
It wouldn't eat it.  It would see the mold and know this is a rotten flower.

T- What would happen if the plants didn't die? 
They would grow up to the sky.
Like a skyscraper!
Someone could get hurt if one fell down.
Or if someone pushed it down, it might crush your house and then you wouldn't have a house or food or anywhere to eat.

The sound isn't really great, but here is a video of our conversation.  I'm more comfortable with photographing, so this video thing is new and I'm still learning.

This is a video of our conversation.

108, monolingual first grade- I finished demonstrating and practicing drawing from observation with the final group of students.  Now we've all seen Austin's Butterfly and worked with pen.  We will continue our observations tomorrow using pen and then moving into watercolor, tempera, colored pencils and clay.

We drew these lumpy, bumpy gourds.  It was fun to listen to their comments ("what happens if I push on one of these bumps?" "What's inside of these?" "Why are they so bumpy?") about the strange-looking vegetables.

112, self contained class.  Today, we planned on having the students apply their new skill of drawing from observation for a more traditional purpose- drawing the continents.  We wanted to make a large map or globe of the Earth and we thought our discussion of the oceans would connect the shell study to the continent drawings. The students seemed uninterested in this endeavor, losing the excitement that we'd had when working with the shells.

T- After this, we'll make a globe or a map, but first we need to practice drawing the continents.

S- I think we should make a moon.

T- That's not a bad idea... We could make the sun and planets, too.

We discussed materials and Ms. Natal suggested we use paper mache.  She has balloons, so we can easily create planets that way. We blew one up to see if it was the round kind.  This led to the children playing with the balloons (their drawings were sufficiently completed and I wasn't forcing them to go back and draw more when they clearly weren't interested.) 

The balloon kept bouncing and getting blown away.  I said I wonder if there was something we could do to hold the balloon still. The students decided to make a balloon holder with blocks.

S2- The balloon will be happy because it's its home.

At first, one student built a tower and tried to balance the balloon on the top.

S1- That won't work! We need to build it with squares.

They began to build a circle of squares. We placed the balloon in the circle and blew on it.  It wasn't tall enough.  They decided to go back in and build it up higher.

First attempt at a balloon holder.

We did another test with the balloon and it was almost secure, but a large gust of air from one student made it come out of it's stand.  The students knew they had to build even higher, but the bell was about to ring to signal change of class, so it's something they'll have to go back to another time.

Second attempt at a balloon holder.

101, pre-k, and 104, bilingual K, both spent the class period working on drawings for the alphabet book. We are very close to being finished. I think there are only a few letters and pictures left.  I can't wait to create the photo collages for this book!