Well, we did it. We figured out how many goldfish it would take to fill our classroom. We found out that it would take 138,000 goldfish to make a tub-deep layer of goldfish on our entire floor. Then we found out that it would take 21 floors to fill the whole room, so our room would hold 2,908,000 goldfish (I did the math, that’s almost 2 tons of goldfish). I think this would be a little low, since there was some room between the tubs, but we still had a blast and have a better grasp of what large numbers mean!
Our vote today asked us to think about what the greatest triumph in a story we’ve read. Anja was pretty sure that Wilbur winning was the biggest, since that saves his life. Yianni, on the other hand, voted for defeating the Green Death, since it was the most powerful dragon and was the scariest. Jerome pointed out that I should have made the Green Death the green slices, which would have made way more sense. Timo helped us remember that the point of the pie slices goes in the center of the circle. Niki started to ask why there were two empty spots, then she figured that 2 people didn’t vote, remembered that two people were absent, and reminded me to fill those in with the black slices. We only have one more day of graphs, which is sad, but the growth we’ve shown is so big I can’t wait to see what they do next time.
We finished Charlotte’s web today! In case you missed it, there are two options. I took a recording of the two chapters being read (links here: Chapter 21, Chapter 22). Otherwise, the text of the book is here (we read from page 163 to the end). Tomorrow, we are going to watch the animated movie from 1973 and compare it to the book. While we were reading, we puzzled what the Chapter Title “Last Day”. Tove thought it might mean the last day before going home, like when you are on vacation. Anja said it might be that last day of the fair, while Timo wondered if it meant the last day before Wilbur was killed. Bisola disagreed with Timo, since she thought Charlotte had saved Wilbur’s life. The book walked us through how Charlotte died but her babies were saved. We even got to see her babies hatch and move out into the world, which was amazing. This was one of our sadder stories, but it was great seeing everyone grow and feel together. For our art project for the day, we made spider babies that will be flying across our classroom. Teddy giggled that he made one of the little spider babies that went crazy, but Paolo said maybe the babies were just sad because they never got to know Charlotte. I’m hoping that we’ll have the babies up and a picture in the blog by tomorrow.
In our work with Ms. Dionysia, the progress is pretty startling. The Amazing Unicorns wanted to get all of there pieces bagged up, since it was getting a little messy, and to finish through step 25. The Unicorns and Dragons are hoping to finish their Ferris Wheel and get ready to build the second ride. The Cornflakes are happy that their food stand is done and they are working on finishing the ramp up. The Saluters are working on finishing page 9 and are starting to lay track. Ms. Dionysia and I are both incredibly impressed with their determination and persistence.
In my interview with Paolo today, he said “The best part was making the baby spiders. I liked drawing them and helping hang some of them up. I really like being able to see my artwork hung up. I hope we get to make a lot of them.”
