Month: May 2018

Today was a blast, as we did one of our most demanding recipes and was rewarded with some tasty treats. I explained that, while changing the ingredients in the smoothies didn’t really cause any problems, a cake is much more exacting. I’ve got to say, the class rose to the challenge. However, when we started, Plout raised an idea: one of the other classes had asked for the option to make chocolate cake, but he wanted to marble his, so we talked about how to do that. Olivia explained that cocoa powder is very bitter, so he would need to mix it in fully instead of just leaving streaks of it in his batter. We ended up suggesting mixing the whole thing up, then splitting the batter, adding cocoa powder to half, and then swirling them together. I was actually curious and tried it myself; it turned out awesome! Amelia decided to marble hers, which she was thankful for: instead of mixing hers up in her mug, she mixed it up in a clear plastic cup, which she explained let her see that she hadn’t mixed all the way to the bottom. As he was measuring, Lamasu remembered that this was an exact recipe, so he made sure to level of his flour to ensure it was the right amount. Antonella was measuring hers, but thought it looked a little too watery, so she decided to add a little extra flour. When she was measuring out the sprinkles, Emma explained that, since it called for 2 teaspoons but we only had the 1/2 teaspoon, she needed to put in 4 scoops (this was unprompted, just math she did on her own. I was blown away!). As we were wrapping up, Maria asked for people’s advice: she wanted her cake to be extra fluffy, so she was considering adding extra baking powder. The class agreed that it might work, but the baking powder was very bitter, so she would have to counteract that in the recipe. I was blown away by how thoughtful, careful, yet experimental the class was; this was a phenomenal class!

Next week, we’re going healthier, so get ready to get healthy!

Today was a great day, full of trains and funny poems, but I want to focus on the end of the year program instead. First things first, since we are doing Moana, we’re going with tropical/Hawaiian shirts, khaki pants, and flower necklaces (which the office has). If you think you’ll have trouble finding a shirt for the program, let me know and we’ll get it sorted out.

Second, in addition to our song and dance, we also want to share a little of ourselves with the audience. Since Moana is all about a girl following her dreams even when the going is tough, we are going to share our dreams for ourselves. As we reflected on the movie, however, we remembered that it wasn’t easy for Moana, so she had to do work to prepare. Therefore, we are also going to share some things we are going to do to accomplish our dreams. I am going to list the students’ goals and the work they are going to do; if you talk to your child this weekend and have changes or additions, text me and I’ll update their lines. Once again, make sure you are practicing the lyrics and dance regularly, the program will be here before we know it.

Class Goals

Timo: Build his own robot, so he is going to get the supplies he needs and watch videos that teach him how to build it.

Rebecca: Become a star gymnast, so she is going to practice a lot and work hard.

Teddy: Become a better swimmer like his brother, so he is going to go to swim school and pay attention to the teacher.

Tove: Have fun with her friends and hang out with them, so she is going to make sure she is being kind and a good friend to them.

Bisola: Be a great cheerleader, so she is going to use her tablet to listen to music and get ideas and practice her dance moves a lot.

Paolo: Stop bad people and make the world a better place, so he is going to work on getting stronger and learning how to help save people.

Gia: Do cartwheels on her own, so she is going to pay close attention on where to put her hands, how to spin, and how to move her feet.

Niki: Be a pilot so she can fly in the sky, so she is going to learn everything she can about planes and flying.

Jerome: Become a professional basketball player, so he is going to practice a lot, especially his dribbling and taking shots.

Yianni: Work at a zoo with animals, so he is going to learn about different kinds of animals, how to take care of them and what to feed them.

Anja: Be a ballerina, so watch other ballerinas and practice dancing so she gets better.

These are not their official lines, but just the ideas we’re starting with. Let me know if anything different emerges from your conversation. Have a great weekend everyone!

Today was a fantastically varied day. We started with an investigation of a rock collection. Paolo thought that one of the rocks smelled funny, which was an interesting way to investigate them. Rebecca noticed that the rocks were numbered, so asked what each kind of rock was. Bisola noticed that the magnetite stuck to the magnetiles, but none of the other rocks did. Jerome suggested to his friends that they all look at the same rock at the same time, so they can compare what they see. For just a little activity for them to warm up with, it certainly sparked some interesting conversations.

During our poetry readings, we had even more interesting discussions. One of the poems that inspired the most conversations was about a boy that got a snake in his lunchbox everyday. Tove thought that the snake might have just snuck in to eat the food, but Yianni wondered if it wasn’t an punishment like the Toy-Eater yesterday. This led to a discussion of other things we wouldn’t want to find in our lunchbox and the class ended up finding and making things to put in my lunchbox. Yianni and Jerome put in blocks that would break my teeth, while Paolo put in a car, since the rubber would be so chewy. Sokrates put in a ‘salt and pepper book’, since he knew I liked salt and pepper popcorn. Timo put glue in my lunch to stick my teeth together, but Gia and Bisola thought that it would be funny to put in all the different rocks, since they would be different flavors. Teddy put markers in my lunchbox, which Niki added would color my teeth and make it look like I had never brushed my teeth. This was another silly poem that really stretched the kids to look at the classroom objects differently and use their imaginations to think up consequences.

Our other poems were also pretty great. We read about a boy being put in an person zoo, which was weird. Timo noticed that the boy looked really sad, so being in a cage might have been like being in jail. Sokrates noticed that the bird on top of the cage looked sad too, so he thought maybe the bird would help the boy escape. In the second poem, Niki couldn’t believe that the baby managed to scare away the monsters, and Gia was even more surprised the baby scared them with just scary stories. Jerome added that the werewolf in the poem was so scared it had to run and hide under the bed, just so it could wait for a different story. Teddy really liked the final poem, about the nose garden. Niki explained the joke by talking about ‘picking flowers’ and ‘picking noses’. I cannot believe the way the class is getting into the poems and are making all kinds of connections.

In our open gym time today, we decided to see what kinds of ramps and pathways we could make. I challenged the class to make a marble run that would take more than 30 seconds for the marble to go through, and they definitely succeeded. Niki used a ruler to find out that their run was over 30 feet long. Timo and Sokrates experimented with using the marbles as wrecking balls and found out that it would take 4 big marbles going down the ramp together to knock over a block. Yianni was disappointed that the big marbles wouldn’t fit through the pipes, even though they fit through the connectors, especially when Paolo’s prediction that the big marble would go down a ramp slower proved incorrect. Teddy was experimenting with launching the marbles down a pipe and realized that the higher he raised one end, the faster the marbles came out the other end. This helped Jerome explain why the marbles were going so much faster through his than another ramp, because his marbles started higher. This was a fascinating exploration, full of all sorts of physics knowledge! Have a great night everyone.

Don’t forget to keep practicing for the end of the year! 

Today we again centered around the Shel Silverstein poems we read. First, we read about a rotten convention where all the nasty people get together. Since the story ended by asking why we weren’t there, we made self-portraits of our most rotten selves. It was pretty entertaining. I’ve got to warn you, some of this are pretty nasty (but no nastier than the book and we couldn’t stop laughing). Timo drew “Garbage Can Timo”, while “Stinky Anja” got a lot of laughs. “Poopin’ Face Yianni” was pretty ridiculous, but Niki had to work hard on getting just the right shade of green for “Rotten Toast Niki”. Teddy also made sure that “Pooping Teddy” was just the right (terrible) color, while Bisola loved making clouds all over her self-portrait of “Farting Bisola”. Jerome’s picture of “Rotten Egg Jerome” was a bit stinky, while Rebecca’s “Toy Eating Rebecca” was both terrifying and rotten. Rebecca was inspired by our other poem, about a mom explaining that, while a little kid didn’t have to clean up their toys, a toy- eating monster would come and leave anything they left out. This inspired us to think of other monsters our parents might use to encourage us to do the right thing. (Anja explained the monsters were part of the ‘consequences’ of our behavior, which led to a pretty great discussion). Tove invented an Old Food Eater that would come in to eat all of her food if she didn’t clean her plate. Paolo, on the other hand, made a monster that would eat his little brother if he wasn’t nice to him. This was a great little discussion, although it was tough for the class to think about consequences in this way.

We also had some cool little discussion nuggets today. Gia prompted us to have a discussion about different kinds of coins, since she brought an amusement park token in with her bank change. Yianni wanted to play with a toy but didn’t want it to get wet, so he and Jerome asked around if it would be okay for them to close up the orbeez and sand tables; I loved seeing how they worked through that situation. Timo discussed with the bank teller why the pens were by the counter and what the chains did. When students from Ms. Theresa’s class came in to show us the book they made, Jerome started a discussion about how they made the pictures in the book. Paolo realized that, instead of using all of the other coins to make 50 cents, they could just take the 50 cent coin Anja brought in. I love the way the class thought through these situations and found their own solutions or questions. That is the whole point of education and my foremost goal as a teacher. Keep shining, everyone!

Hi everyone! Today was a great day, as we set sail. Yesterday we started reading “Falling Up” by Shel Silverstein as part of our end of the year poetry investigation. We discussed how poems are similar and different from stories, which was a fascinating discussion. Today, we read a number of poems and the students drew some pictures in response. We read ‘Diving Board’, which made Tove think about how scared the character was going to be to jump. After listening to ‘Noise Day’, Teddy and Gia both drew what they thought it would look like to make the noise or how the sound would look. We had a blast listening to the poems, but the best was probably ‘Needles and Pins’, after listening to that, the class seemed interested in boats, so that meant we had to explore them together.

Since we were reading about boats, we decided to make our own in the water table. Anja started experimenting with just flat sheets of foil, to see how they did. Bisola realized that she needed to fold up the edges of the foil to make the boat, which Paolo explained let the boat sink lower and still keep the water out. Rebecca tried at least 4 designs before being satisfied with her boat. Jerome was thinking about how to track the cubes each boat could hold and decided that it wouldn’t count if the cubes were wet and water was inside the boat. Timo asked if he could put a boat under his boat to help hold his up, which didn’t help that much. It did inspire Niki, however, to use two sheets of foil to ‘stiffen’ up her boat. Yianni was impressed with his group, as their design managed to support 17 cubes. This was a wild little mini-exploration that really pushed the kids to do their best.

We have a new video up! As they were reviewing the video, Andreas pointed out that one of the sound effects was perfectly timed with the video. Patrick was worried that he could hear people talking in the background, but it ended up not being very loud. All in all, the video turned out great for Patrick and you can see it here.

We also started working on our next videos. Robbie was working with Andreas and thought that one of the characters should have a thicker body so it would match the work they started last time. That reminded Juliana that she needed to get the same markers as she used last time so they would look the same. Robbie suddenly realized that he had put the wrong face on one of their character, and was about to delete it out, when Andreas pointed out that the video actually didn’t capture the faces, so it wasn’t a problem. Juliana was really hoping to get her video uploaded, but the audio took longer than she had expected.  Fingers crossed that it is done and up by next week! (we actually have two that should be up by that time. Have a great week everyone!