Welcome back to Plato Academy, I’m so glad to be back with you! We talked about some of what they did over break and it sounded incredible. Rebecca talked about playing soccer and Bisola added that they both play, but they are on different teams. Timo was fondly remembering being able to sleep late, while Paolo told us about the gingerbread house he made. Jerome and Teddy both thought some of the best memories were from playing with their cousins or their brother, respectively. I am so glad you had great memories and are back to learn! Note that book orders are due tonight, so please get them in ASAP or place them through the link on the right (thanks to those of you that already turned in your order).
We started our time together by starting a new book, the Tale of Despereaux. We started by looking over the cover and making predictions. Anja predicted that it would be about a little mouse, which everyone thought was a great idea. Yianni remembered a song and talked about the mouse running up the clock. Timo predicted that he was going to cut something with the scissors he was carrying, while Niki disagreed and pointed out that he was going to poke something, not cut it because the mouse was actually carrying a needle. In the story, we were first confused because the name of the chapter was “The Last One”, which didn’t seem like a good title for the FIRST chapter. Turns out, Despereaux’s mom said he was going to be the last child she had, since he was so sick and it was hard having kids. We also talked about how glad we are that Despereaux makes it and can’t wait to find out what happens next.
In our exploration time, we discussed different kinds of vehicles, drew our blueprints, and built them with blocks. Anja decided to build a helicopter with the blades included. Teddy built a spaceship and then counted that he used 7 blocks to build it. Paolo made sure his airplane wings were sturdy, while Jerome built his car with 1-unit blocks for the tires, as they seemed the most like tires to him. Rebecca wanted to build a mouse for a vehicle, which made a conversation about whether a mouse is a vehicle. Yianni pointed out that, if he shrank down so he could ride on the back then it might be a vehicle. Gia and Tove worked together to make a motorcycle, but afterwards Tove realized afterward that they had to go back and change the blueprint to match the final version of the motorcycle they built. This was a great opportunity to push ourselves to understand vehicles, use our blueprints to plan our construction, and then reflect on the process afterwards.
After our shortened exploration time, Ms. Stephanie came from the library to read to us and Ms. Anna’s class. We read Count the Monkeys, and Niki helped us come up with ways to scare away the lumberjacks. Teddy kept count on his fingers to see how many were left when Ms. Stephanie was singing about the crocodile eating the monkeys. We also read Monkey and Me, where Bisola helped us predict what animal would be on the next page based on the pose of the little girl. We had a blast singing, reading and dancing with Ms. Stephanie today.
After we read with Ms. Stephanie, we went to the library ourselves to pick out our own next books. Rebecca loved the bright colors of his book, while Anja ended up changing her mind on her book: she loved that it was about Barbie, but was disappointed that it was a bunch of little stories together instead of one big story. Timo thought he wanted his book because it was about dinosaurs, but he ended up thinking the bones looked too yellow and didn’t like the art. Yianni liked his book, because it was a picture search book, and he was able to have his friends help him look for the hidden things. Gia picked what issue of a magazine she wanted to read after she finished looking over her book, while Tove read through a lot of issues of a magazine because she liked the activities it had inside. Bisola realized that the issues were about different things, as the issue she picked was all about sea horses, while a different one was about frogs. We are getting much better about picking our books, using the proper terms to describe parts of magazines, and articulating what we like or dislike a book.
I know I talked with some of you during conferences about giving the students more of a voice in the blog, so starting today I’m going to try to interview one student a day about what they thought were the highlights of the day, going alphabetically. Today, I talked to Rebecca about what she thought the highlight of the day was. For Rebecca, she said “I liked building with the blocks. I liked it because I was able to work with my friends and build something cool.”
Don’t forget, we have a field trip tomorrow to the National Hellenic Museum. I can’t wait to learn a lot myself and have the kids teach me about Greece. If you DO NOT have hot lunch through the school, make sure you bring a bag lunch in a disposable lunch bag. Also, note that we are leaving early tomorrow and we need to be at school by 8:40 tomorrow. I will be tweeting pics and updates when I can on the class twitter account with the hashtag #FieldTripFun
