Home Learning

It's hard to believe, but we are in our sixth week of remote learning, with six more weeks to go! If you had asked me back in February if we would have closed schools, I never would have guessed it!  The idea that we took a whole school (a whole district, and state, and country!) and switched withing a mater of days from classroom learning to remote learning is just mind boggling!  I saw this quote on Facebook today and really like it.

Apparently he is a professor of religion, but don't mind that. I just connect with the idea that we are figuring out how to do remote learning only moments before trying to teach it to children and families. Every step of the way we are trying to decide what is best for teachers, students, and families.  How can we engage kids, keep them learning (or at least stop them from un-learning!), while also supporting families and teachers in this unprecedented time of trauma and uncertainty.  It is certainly an experience we will never forget.

That said, I am extremely impressed with how well we as a school community are doing with this new experience.  The teachers and staff are all working hard to deliver the best possible lessons, while trying to teach students how to use the technology, and trying to balance the amount of time kids spend online and off.  Students are working hard to engage with their teachers and get their school work done, even though we know they are missing friends and school activities. The district is working hard to make sure everyone has food they need for their bellies, the technology they need for their education, the child care that essential workers need to keep our society functioning, and the milestone experiences that we all have all been hoping for and planning on. These are not easy tasks for anyone, yet everyone in this community is pulling together to make it work. I'm proud to be part of this community and this school.

On a lighter note, in the past two weeks my library assignments have included art activities to create a patchwork elephant (Elmer) and a rainbow garden (Planting a Rainbow).  Check out some of the beautiful elephants and gardens that are filling my Seesaw feed!

I could go on and on with the beautiful elephants and rainbow gardens, but I'll stop here. We are now moving on to a few weeks of digital citizenship lessons.  Less colorful, but maybe a little more educational. :)

Battle of the Books

This year's Battle of the Books is in full swing! Once again I'm doing brackets on the bulletin board.

5th grade

4th grade

The first round is to make a digital poster for your book.  Students used the website PosterMyWall.com to create posters that represented their books in tone and style. This week the students will vote on their favorites from each bracket set and we'll see who moves on to round two - book trailers!

Three Little Pigs and First Grade

For the past few weeks in library, first graders have been studying different versions of The Three Little Pigs fairy tale.  We talked about when it was first written and how the variety of versions are similar and different.  The story was first written in the late 1800's by  James Halliwell-Phillipps, with a more popular version written several years later by Joseph Jacobs, crediting Halliwell-Phillipps.

After reading several versions of the story and retelling it, we started making our own stop motion version of the fairy tale.

Next week we'll finish the video and students will have a chance to make their own stop motion fairy tales.  I can't wait to see what they come up with!

More real-world STEM

These kiddos finished two bookshelves and a book display!  Now they are moving on to an even trickier project -- creating shelves without instructions.  I love their enthusiasm!

Practical Learning

I used my Scholastic Book Fair dollars to get some new shelving units for the library.  They've been sitting around, unbuilt, for awhile now, so this week I decided to have my 5th grade STEM class put them together.  What a great decision!!  The kids are having a great time and I am amazed with the collaboration I'm seeing.  Talk about real life skills!  They self-selected groups and are working remarkably well together.  Today I heard one kid explaining a cam screw to another, who listened attentively then replied with, "Wow, cool." They are following directions, some of which are minimal at best and one set is written in Portuguese!  Fortunately it's also illustrated.  The kids have come across some problems, they've had to redo parts, and one group even had to take it all apart and start from scratch.  I've heard some frustrations, but no one has quit.  One girl, upon finding out they had to go backwards several steps, again, said, "I'M NOT DOING THIS AGAIN. I'M DONE!" but even as she was saying it, she started undoing her work and she proceeded to work with the rest of her group to fix the problem and carry on.  I didn't even have to intervene.  At the end of each class I ask if I should finish it for them or if they want to keep working on it, and I always get a resounding "We want to do it!"  So we tuck things out of the way and leave it until they come back again for their next STEM class.  I'm in no hurry to get them done.  In fact, with the effort I'm seeing from these kiddos, I'm tempted to buy more furniture!!  :)

Testing out Santa's Sphero sleighs

In library class 5th grade has been working on building Santa Sleighs out of recycled materials. Today they got to test them out with Spheros for reindeer! We learned that running on the carpet causes friction which slows things down, that it's good to have your reindeer closer to the sleigh, that a smaller sleigh is easier to pull but carries less presents, and that it's hard for ONE Santa to drive many sleighs!