March 11, 2009

March 11, 2009

Who Are These Children???
Read Across America Day was a huge success!! The day began with the Ivy Vine Puppet Show-a real favorite. The 2/3's next met local author and illustrator Daniel J. Mahoney. He spoke about the process for creating a book and we learned that it takes many edits and rewrites before a book is completed. Mr. Mahoney elicited story ideas from the children which he illustrated. A tree with sawed off legs, a rabbit with laser vision-just some of their thoughts!

After being inspired by Mr. Mahoney, the children set out to create their own individual stories.

Story teller Kent Bushman entertained us after lunch with his great tales. He was followed by the climax of the day-the whole school parade to salute Dr. Seuss. It was such fun to see the children dressed as their favorite storybook characters!

Some of the third graders have been working on a class newspaper and they were so excited by the success of their first newspaper (subscriptions went from zero to over twenty)that they are now working on their second edition. The topic of this one is global warming. It is a joy to see the metamorphosis of this completely child driven activity-the research done, jokes written, word searches produced, comic strips drawn, layout agreed upon. The children hope to have this edition published in the next few days. They are already planning their third edition and the topic is Italy. I hope they have some travel tips included. Missing from the group photo are Veda and Anya.

Hands on learning and science-what could be better. The class visited the science lab where they moved pieces of Styrofoam( the earth's crust) through red, slippery goop (magma). Volcanoes erupted, faults collided, and continents were formed.

The children have also been learning about magnetism, searching the school for objects magnets are attracted to. They compiled a list and looked for similarities. They also observed the changes with iron filings as they moved magnets underneath the shavings. "Cool, look at this, they look like hair"-a few of their comments.


It has been a busy few weeks. The time spent with your children definitely flies by!! Lynne