Today was a great day, but we had a rough conversation. In our poem exploration, we are reading Langston Hughes “Poems for Children”, which has some tougher themes. First, we had to discuss the basics of slavery in order to understand “Aunt Sue’s Story”. I think this was a hard thing for the class to understand, but we did at least start understanding this piece of our history. Then, when we were reading “Negro Dreams of Rivers”, we had to explain that Negro is a word we don’t use now but wasn’t a bad word when it was written. These were heavy discussions, but the class did well and were very reflective.
Our other investigations were equally weighty but rewarding. As part of our art observation exploration, today we looked at Las Meninas and shared what we saw. Anja said that a lot of people wanted to be the little girl in the middle, since she looked like everyone was looking at her. Rebecca added that she wanted to be the little girl because she was dressed like a princess. Sokrates pointed out that the inside of the room was fancy like a church, but it was too small to be a church, so he didn’t know where it was. When I asked what the class saw about the girl, Anja thought she looked like she must be happy, since she was a princess. Niki pointed out that her actual face looked a little scared, so maybe she was scared because she had to go to the ball and didn’t want to. Jerome thought maybe she was actually looking sad and explained it as because she was the smallest person in the room. Rebecca responded that, even though she was small, she was still a little kid and would still be growing. Tove thought that the girl standing above her was the ‘princess’s’ older sister, and felt bad that the princess was sad and was leaving the room. Teddy pointed out that, while the girls in the center of the room were easy to see, there were actually people hidden in the darker areas of the painting, which led us to discuss what they might be doing. This was a great discussion, as we really started using what we saw in the painting to justify our interpretations of the painting.
Our other big work of the day using the balance to compare the weight of objects in the classroom. Paolo noticed right away that one big block weighed more than 2 little blocks, which actually surprised me. Bisola pointed out that, if there is the same thing on each side, it should be balanced. Timo used this when he figured out that, if he had three blocks on one side, he needed to have 3 on the other. Jerome explained the the line on the dial pointed to the side that was lighter, not the one that was heavier. Yianni was curious about what would happen if nothing was on it, but also wanted to investigate if his hands weighed the same. Teddy was surprised how many different things he needed to use to balance the 3 crayons on one side. Tove explained that hers didn’t balance because, even though they were both blue bears, they were different sizes. Gia suggested that she use the yellow bear, since it was the same size and the color didn’t matter. We had a blast using the balance and can’t wait to see what we get to work with tomorrow!
