"Is the Block Area Open?"

If the rug at our block area could speak, it would tell us that this school year tops all other school years in terms of foot traffic and the "amazingness" of block structures it had supported on its back to date. We have many block builders (young engineers, to be more precise) in our classroom, both girls and boys. Among them are the die-hard block builders who are responsible for inspiring others to heed the call of the unit blocks and exercise their minds and might as they explore the art and science of building block structures that stay standing, conceal things, provide visual pleasure, move things like toy cars and marbles from one place to another, and encourage builders and viewers to see spaces from multiple perspectives. Prepare to be astonished by the minds of our young engineers as reflected by their body of work. Click here to begin.

We Like Big Books!

We have big books in the classroom and have read several of them with the children. One of their favorite book is Noisy Nora written by Rosemary Wells. It is a story written with rhyming and repetitive text, which facilitates easy recall and supports the development of reading skills. What really draws the children to this book is its story about Nora, the middle child in the family, who employs several ways to get the attention of her parents, and then finally declares, "I'm leaving," when her attention-getting schemes elicit negative attention from everyone. Who would not be able to empathize with Nora? Here is a clip of a group of children reading Noisy Nora together. They said they can read the book without teacher help. Indeed, they did.

Meeting for Worship with Buddies

In silence, the children sat with their eighth grade buddies when we had Meeting for Worship today and last Tuesday. The eighth graders and the children in our class inspire each other's stillness, demonstrating the importance they play in each others' school experience. After fifteen minutes of worship, we all held hands to signal the end of the Meeting. Then they played. Some built incredible block structures together. Many drew and wrote with markers and crayons. Some molded with foam clay while others explored foamy, glittery colored water with water wheels and containers. A few looked at books together. Some eighth graders sat with their Orange Room buddies at the snack table. We might get them together again on Friday before our December break begins. Here are images of the children and their buddies, having fun playing and learning about each other, creating memories of school year 2008-09 together. Just click on the underlined word "images" in the previous sentence to view the slideshow.

Math: Ordering Objects by Size and Quantity

We began by brainstorming what "order" means. Many children said it is like the food that you get from the restaurant. "Like you order pizza or something." A child said that it is like "peace and order." Another said that it is like organizing things. Then we ordered jumbo Cuisenaire rods from shortest to longest. "It is like a stair case!" They exclaimed. We looked at the rods and observed that the each rod in the arrangement is one unit more than the rod that preceded it. Then we used multilinks to demonstrate the same concept. Finally, each child demonstrated their understanding of the concept of ordering by finding at least four objects and ordering them by size. See photos of their work (just click on the highlighted word, "photo"). Then we gathered as a group again. Each child was given a card with the numeric symbol and a picture representation of the quantities from one to ten. They looked at the number represented on the card in their hand, and as a group, ordered the cards from the least quantity to the most.

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See and hear the Orange and Green Room perform together the song on friendship, "Do You Want to be my Friend," at the lower school community meeting. Enjoy!