Mid February Report

Thanks to the snow for taking a break. Here's what we've been up to...

Students underwent almost 2 weeks of a trigger project. Each student chose a behavior or feeling to interrupt (going out on the fire escape and singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" was among the most entertaining) and then applied Nonviolent Communication principles in their Trigger notebook. Students made observations about the inner and outer conditions, wrote down feelings present, looked into what needs might not be being met and finally thought of possible actions they could take or request of others. Students will reflect on this first project and will begin another in March.

In our Renaissance and Leonardo da Vinci studies, students have practiced a form of outlining while reading 3 short chapters. While reading each paragraph, students wrote the main topic in the margin. The children then went back and reread the chapter, this time highlighting, in a pithy and succinct manner, the details that support/represent the main topic. Finally, students then wrote outlines in their Flight Logs. This will prepare them for a research project when we return from break.

This past week we turned our attention to drafting 5 paragraph essays in response to The Phantom Tollbooth and Wood Song. After utilizing a graphic organizer to develop a position and three supporting reasons, students determined the order in which to present their ideas so as to make the most persuasive case. After idea development and organization, Red Fox Clanners drafted their essays and moved on to self editing conventions and revising for sentence fluency and word choice. Students also peer edited and revised the same traits. Children either wrote or typed their final drafts before vacation began. Imbedded throughout the process were lessons on introductions (including their position, supporting reasons, and various strategies to hook the reader), the body, conclusions, sentence fluency and word choice.

The past 2 Fridays we have spent our math time in mixed age groups with a focus on problem solving. Students received a problem solving framework which takes them through a detailed process of gathering information from the word problem, organizing it, picking a strategy to solve the problem, recording their thinking, and then extending their thinking. Word problems are a major component of the Singapore math program, thus these collaborative sessions will serve the students well in becoming stronger problem solvers.

January

Oh January, you came and went without a blog post. You must have been full of many things...

Interspersed with the snow days, we had school! Students spent time reflecting on their goals from the fall, taking standardized tests, and responding to writing prompts. Students read, discussed and answered many questions while reading another literature circle book. Red Foxes read and summarized articles from the newspaper, Positive News, finished their investigation of Julius Caesar and Ancient Rome and finished math units on which they were working. We have had multiple lessons on Nonviolent Communication each week and have begun our first Trigger Project of the year. Students chose a behavior or feeling to interrupt, and I will choose their next trigger in some weeks after they gain familiarity with the practice. We tessellated, contemplated, and finished going through the scientific method in our Weather/Wildlife projects to name a few.

And now here is February...

End of December

Book groups met for the final time on Wednesday. Discussions became deeper as students consciously worked on their listening and sharing skills along with bringing high quality thoughts and questions to the meetings. Themes from the Wood Song discussion included the results of giving oneself over fully to something you love, the love and calmness we feel when we spend time with pets and an exploration of how we are like Gary at times when we want to continue an experience in order to learn more. Themes from The Phantom Tollbooth discussion included sharing an impossible task we will do in our lives, the pitfalls of ignorance (as represented by characters) and the tools of wisdom one can use to overcome ignorance, and finally the idea that boredom is something that one imposes on oneself. Both discussions were full of joy, creativity and life!

We are embarking on our investigation of Leonardo da Vinci's contributions to flight by first learning about Ancient Rome. Students have shown advanced knowledge of Roman Gods and Goddesses, and have begun learning about the rise of Rome, Rome's contributions to today (smooth roads, aqueduct, swimming pools etc.) and Julius Caesar. We will make our way toward the Renaissance in January and attempt to make our own ornithopters.

The Red Fox Clan spent time putting the final touches on the songs they learned for the amazing Solstice Celebration on Wednesday evening. Along with the other children, the Red Fox Clan displayed great levels of love, respect, compassion and leadership throughout the night. What an incredible group of children within an incredible community.

Have a joyful and restful holiday vacation!

Second post of December

The Red Fox Clan dove into the December busyness with a lot on their plate. They continued to practice preparing songs to be sung at next week's Solstice Celebration, as well as practice their technical writing skills in the form of writing directions for games to be played at Saturday's Holiday Fair.

We had most productive book group meetings where students shared their great enthusiasm for the books they are reading as well as their answers to higher level thinking questions. Students used both their answers and their own thoughts and questions as diving boards for discussion. The Wood Song group appreciated Paulsen's passion for learning from dogs and nature and made many connections to their own life experiences. The Phantom Tollbooth group was amused by Juster's writing and discussed how the book represents what lies just under the surface of the real world. The children are already displaying quite exceptional active listening skills, showing each other a great deal of respect and enjoying each other's ideas.

We continued to make our way closer to the last lessons of our first Singapore books in math. Students are enjoying topics ranging from constructing and filling in missing pieces of parallelograms to constructing and investigating the volume of cuboids. Tessellations and reviewing fractions are on deck.

The Beginning of December

The Red Fox Clan delved further into their Weather/Wildlife project, creating frequency tables, bar and line graphs to better represent data. Next week some students will complete pie charts before moving on to writing an analysis, discussion and conclusion.

We began book groups, with one group reading Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth and the other reading Gary Paulsen's Wood Song. Along with answering higher level thinking questions, students are continuing to maintain the practice of recording a thought or question for each section read. Now they are using this practice to start discussions with their peers. Students are practicing the skills of sharing, active listening and rhythm and other intricacies of holding a productive and enjoyable discussion.

To cap of our visit to Ancient Greece, we learned about the aeolipile. This hot water rocket engine, steam engine, and jet engine marked the start of engine invention. We will revisit engines in the world of flight in the spring.

We enjoyed our annual Hanukkah celebration on Friday morning. Latkes, dreidel and stories filled our tummies and hearts. This is a busy time of year! Students will continue with book groups, math, writing, science as well as preparing for the Holiday Fair.

11 and 12

Red Fox Clanners culminated their Athens/Sparta project with a performance at Big Circle. We finished filming our final scenes in the days before vacation and each travel show will be posted in short segments on the Red Fox Clan's facebook page soon.

Students continue to enthusiastically share their writing several times a week during Author's Share. Along with recording what they work on each day and sharing their drafting, students are adding weekly editing and collecting of misspelled words to their writing rhythm.

On Friday we were visited by Devin Franklin. Red Fox Clanners shared information from the large amount of Wildlife and Weather data recorded over the 6 weeks of Flying Deer. Devin offered students feedback on their presentations. To better represent their findings, students will formally document hypotheses, procedure, observations in the form of frequency tables, line graphs, bar graphs and pie graphs, and discuss their findings and new questions in a conclusion. We will aim to finish this project by mid December. Students have already voiced their plans to test their hypotheses about the relationship between weather and wildlife behavior next spring.

Empty Bowls was a great success, with students cutting vegetables and creating flags that made up the centerpieces. And that soup was delicious. Thank you all for contributing vegetables and your love to raise money to feed people. Enjoy the holiday!

Week 10

The main task of the week was the continuation of our Athens/Sparta Travel Show Project. Children split up the scenes they previously created and set to writing scripts. After writing in pairs, students collaborated with the other group members in the revision, editing and practicing of the scripts. Costume and props lists were made and students began memorizing their lines. Filming will start on Monday.

We spent two math sessions looking at the massive amount of data we collected over the 6 weeks of Flying Deer. Students created tables including the number of species seen each day, the number of animals seen each day, the number of animals before rainy days, the number of species seen on rainy days and many other variations. We will graph our data in an effort to learn more about how weather affects animals and specific species. On October 20th we saw 54 animals across 18 species!

The Red Fox Clan hopes to share several scenes from the Athens/Sparta Travel Show Project at next week's Big Circle. We hope you can come!