Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Pod A 
​Kiln Carnage

Over the weekend, some of the clay animals went into the kiln.  As sometimes happens, three of the four pieces exploded in the kiln and the fourth piece lost two legs.  When the children learned of this disaster, they immediately demonstrated their resilience  by confidently stating that they would re-make the animals.   Wolf had been absent during our clay animal work, so today he started by drawing two bears.  Later, he joined his friends in forming the animals.   In addition to Wolf's bear, there was a new stegosaurus (Palmer), a new dog (Gigi), and another bear (Cannon).

New Hollow Blocks

​Yesterday, Pod A worked together to open up the new hollow blocks for our classroom.  Maren and Dakota first navigated the large box of blocks from the elevator balcony to the classroom.  Once they arrive all six of the children who were present yesterday worked together to open the box and remove the blocks.  This process required cooperation and problem solving on a large scale.  The children found that the box became an excellent tunnel and found innovative approaches to using the box and the blocks.  The new blocks figured prominently in today's building as children worked to create roadways and animal enclosures. Many thanks to parents for purchasing these blocks and other items from the Book Fair Wish Tree!

Pod B
Thanksgiving: Thinking of Others

It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving will be here next week.  Pod B has been thinking about giving to others during this season of gratitude.  Yesterday, children made sandwiches for Martha's Table, which Melanie delivered after school yesterday.  Today they made messages which will be delivered later this week; we plan to give Martha's Table a batch of child-made muffins.   The idea behind this experience came from a previous conversation the children had after reading "Last Stop on Market Street."   Here's some of that conversation from October 29th:
Melanie:  Do you remember how these people at the end of the book serve food at a ‘soup kitchen’?
Grace: Maybe we could start doing that.  We could cook people food.
Oliver:  Yeah, like pretend food.
Grace:  No, real food.
Melanie:  Are these people paying for their food?  What’s different about this?
Grace:  They just say ‘Here’s your food, nope, no money. That’s okay.’
Olivia:  Some people don’t have food.  
Grace:  And they don’t even have a home.  Maybe we could make a whole different thing.  Maybe strangers could sleep here.
​Oliver:  They could sleep, and eat all the food, and take it to their house and eat it all up for dinner and go to bed.

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​The children also made something for themselves!  They worked on these beautiful clay bowls that they will use during the Thanksgiving Feast.

Thinking about Leaves

The children had a full hour outside on this beautiful, windy day.  They noticed the colorful leaves on the persimmon tree. Children made observations and formed theories about the natural world.  Grace's ideas involved the lines that she saw in the leaves, something that Pod A has been thinking about this year as  well.
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Olivia: See this one? It has red and green and it shines in the sun.
Melanie: Why are they so many different colors?
Grace: ‘Cause seasons change. It hibernates.
Olivia: And we’ll see no leaves when winter comes.
Grace: See the lines? They have color in them and they spread around the leaf.  If you wish this one wanted to be pink, it wouldn’t happen, because it wanted to be orange, and it had to, ‘cause the lines.  Do you know why it had to change? Sometimes leaves need cold.  Sometimes leaves need rain.  What I still don’t understand is, you see those trees hanging down like that? (Points to weeping willow) They don’t change color.  
Melanie: Why is that tree still green?
Grace: It has really really strong chemicals.  The tree wants it to have color, but the tree branches don’t like it.. they’re punishing it with don’t changing colors so all year it will stay the same.  They could just ask “hey can you take the chemicals out?”
Aida: (Picking up a brown leaf)That reminds me of chocolate chips.
Olivia inspects different textures of leaves, some are very crunchy.
Olivia: They’re getting curved because it’s a different summer.  They’re all getting broken and stuff.  Because you step on them, and you break them.
(We have seven more minutes to play)
Aida: let’s collect seven more leaves.

​​Children also worked on cooperative building in our sand area.
Oliver:  It’s a cake machine.  You put the cake in and it transforms.
Andy:  I’m putting sugar inside.