March 04th, 2021

Happy 24th Birthday to St. Johns! This morning we celebrated by leading a wonderful sing along and sharing in Tucker’s presentation of the school’s birthday card! During our snack celebration, Jack suggested that “we should give the house of the school a cookie for the birthday”. While the school couldn’t share the cookies, we certainly enjoyed them at snack!

Today we sat down and discussed our first draft drawing from yesterday. We chatted about what features were already there and which we might like to add to our final composition. A divisive possibility soon popped up in the conversation. We present to the question of the shipwreck:

Lochie: Hey! I have something that's on the ocean, that sinks! The titanic, struck an iceberg and Annie thought it was just a little bump, but it was a scrape to the side of the ship.
George: Ooh a sinking ship. 
Elena: What do we think about adding a sinking ship to the mural?
Jack: I don’t really know about that. 
Lochie: Oh, oh I’ll tell you if you want to know about that. The titanic was very big and some people called it the floating palace when it was built. Some people believed it was unsinkable, but it wasn’t. 
Elle: I don’t want to add that. I don’t like sinking ships. 
Marley: uhhh, umm no
Jack/: I think it would be scary to imagine, because I don’t even know how to swim
Violet: I don’t know how to swim either. 
Marley: Yes, we could add it? I do know how to swim 
Elle: I know, we could add sea stars and dolphins!
George: Yeah, fish!

While we haven’t yet come to a conclusion about the shipwreck there was overwhelming support for adding some small sea creatures to the ocean floor. Check back next week to see how the project evolves.

We also wanted to highlight some interesting play from the sand/water table today. Jack and Lochie spent part of the morning building their own system of rivers and oceans by filling the sand table with water and rerouting it by moving the sand around.

Jack: I’m collecting the trees so Lochie can do his thing while we clean the shells
Lochie: Can you make holes and I’ll spread water into them?
Lochie: And look, even the ocean is very nearby and how can the two ponds get to the river? Maybe we should break these down and pour it into the next part?
Jack: That’s what science told me. It told me you needed sand and water and rock clearing and to put water down it. See they’re all connected!
Lochie: It worked! Even more water pouring in!
Jack: We can even build blocks (obstacles to the water moving) and those could be rocks! Because there’s sometimes rocks in oceans and in rivers