How will we know?

All over the education world today, educators and administrators are asking four key questions:
◦ What is it we expect our students to learn?
◦ How will we know when students have learned it?
◦ How will we respond when students have not learned it?
◦ How will we respond when students have learned it?

Today offered up an exciting answer for "How will we know when they've learned it?"  . . .
When the information weaves itself into a child's life, into those quiet (or not-so-quiet moments) of the day when you're not trying to teach it.  That's when you know they've learned it!

This morning we were lined up at the front of the school, waiting for the late arrival of a field trip bus.  A third grader was suddenly excitedly pointing and exclaiming, "It's a right-angled triangle!  Right there in the sidewalk!  Look, Ms. S!  It's a right-angled, isosceles triangle!"  Indeed it is. 

"How will we know they've learned it?"  Any more questions?

In the garden with dirt!

We are finally getting started on our butterfly habitat!

There's just something about digging in the dirt.  If you haven't done it in a while, find a reason soon!  A student's parent recently asked me how I had gotten into paleontology field work.  I began by attending a Paleontology Field School for Educators because I love to learn and I like to find interesting summer professional development.  But I've continued largely because I've discovered the joy and peace of digging in the dirt.  Something of a meditation, putting hands into soil nurtures the soul.

There's a Book for That!

Jump Into Science: Dirt by Steve "The Dirtmeister" Tomecek

Kids Discover: Soil

Our Place in Space

The children are using the Cosmic Boxes, a series of wooden nesting boxes, to learn our address in space: Universe, Milky Way Galaxy, Solar System, Planet Earth, North America, United States of America, Texas, Houston, and finally our school.

Next, each child took on the role of an expert (meteorologist, botanist, zoologist, geologist, economist, historian, geographer, anthropologist) to investigate a Mystery Trunk filled with objects from a mystery place.

For each object, we asked, “What is it? What is it used for? Which experts would be interested in this object? What does it tell us about the mystery place?”

The contents included a Monarch butterfly, a branch from a cotton plant, rice, salt, sugar, a piñata, a Lightening Whelk, six different flags, a piece of barbed wire, water from the Gulf of Mexico, sand, flint, sulfur, granite, watermelon seeds, corn seeds, bluebonnet seeds, a space shuttle model, a hurricane tracking chart, a vial of oil, and more.  Many of the objects overlapped more than one category.  Both student geologists and economists were interested in the sulfur and the salt.  Botanists and economists were interested in rice, cotton, and pecans.  Economists and zoologists found the photograph of the longhorn interesting.

 

 

Can you guess the mystery place?

If you're in town, you can check out an exhibit featuring this mystery place! Visit the Houston Museum of Natural Science to learn more!

There's a Book for That!

The Armadillo from Amarillo by Lynne Cherry

Slow Bloomer

Finally!  I was starting to worry I had a dud. 
As is my winter tradition, we assembled this bulb at the start of December.  When we went home for the Winter Holiday, it still hadn't begun to grow.









Winter Break came and went, and our line graph was still flat.  I almost gave up on this sleeper!  Then, this Little Bulb That Could finally put its resources together to send up a bud!

January 10, 2011

February 1, 2011

February 7, 2011

February 22, 2011

An important reminder to be patient with slow bloomers!  Development sometimes takes its own sweet time, regardless of how much we fret or how often we measure.

Worth the wait, this beautiful bloomer brought us fabulous botany lessons.

March 3, 2011

"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson