Chill in the air



ice on our birdbath

Surprise! 
Look what we found this morning, with scarves around our necks, mittens on our hands, and our breath hanging visibly in the air . . .

Walk in the woods

For a few weeks, I've been admiring sidewalk leaves and pondering how to transform them into prints.  In fact, I've been toting leaves home and stashing them in the cabinet with this very intention.  Then Maya found an easy way to do exactly that! 





This morning, in a Martha-Stewart moment, I quickly carved a stamp from one of the leaves I'd hustled home from my daily walk.  Then, I headed to The Arboretum with eyes on the trail for more leaves.  (Note: This stoop/examine/collect-or-reject process makes walking progress much more slow.) 






Noticing the seasonal changes in the forest was a bonus.
















I also got to see, first-hand, the impact of our extended drought.  Dead trees all over town are being cut down and removed, for fear of forest fire or wind damage.  The woods are much less lovely, dark, and deep these days.

Take advantage of our gorgeous autumn weather, and enjoy a walk in the woods with your family!
Houston Arboretum
Jesse Jones Park
Mercer Arboretum
Nature Discovery Center
Brazos Bend State Park

Collect leaves, turn soft pencils or crayons on their sides, and do some rubbings to get a similar effect.

Shumard Oak

There's a Book for That!
Trees of Texas by Carmine Stahl
Field Guide to Trees of North America
Printing by Hand by Lena Corwin
    

Pop-ular science

(And for that title, you can blame a long lineage of not-so-funny punners.)

I promised to share what we were up to with our kernel counting, and here it is . . .

Science, of course!















After studying matter and reading The Popcorn Book by Tomie dePaola, we were inspired to investigate a hypothesis.  "Will popcorn pop more if we soak the kernels in water?"  Working together as a class (and guided by a form I adapted from something the district distributed), the children designed an experiment to help us find out. 

Experienced scientists, the children did some insightful scientific thinking in the process of planning the experiment.  Based on what they know about matter, they proposed a hypothesis, "The more water we add, the more kernels will pop" (although a few skeptical young scientists argued that too much water would make the kernels soggy and prevent them from popping).  "We were experimenting popcorn and how will it pop yesterday. We were wondering if the popcorn will pop better with water in the bag. The heat will heat the water which will heat the kernels and make them pop. I think the bag with fewer unpopped kernels is the one that is half full of water." GW, 3rd grade

Procedure
They brainstormed the aspects of the experiment that we would need to hold constant. "We will need to use the same number of kernels each time." "We should use all the same brand of popcorn." "From the same bag, too!" "We should use the same machine to pop them."

Knowing that scientists measure things, the children made a list of what would need to be measured: "Count the starting kernels."  Thinking it was quite a lot, the children decided upon 200 kernels (and were then surprised by how few that seemed when they were counted out and placed in the bag).  "Count the unpopped kernels at the end."  "Measure how much water we add."  To each of two bags of 200 kernels, we added 60 milliliters of water, which meant they were swimming in water.  Since there was some disagreement about our hypothesis that more water was better, we decided to test a Goldilocks mid-point and added a paper towel soaked in 10 milliliters of water to each of two bags of 200 kernels.  "Measure how long we pop the popcorn."  We popped each group of kernels for 4 minutes.

They also considered possible unintended variables.  "What if the machine gets hotter, the longer it's on?  That could change our results."  The children proposed multiple trials to cancel out any extra heating that took place over time.

"We are doing a science experiment with popcorn. Would more popcorn pop in water or no water? We read a book about popcorn. The procedure is first we count to 200 kernels. Then we leave some with and without water. We let them sit over night. We pop them and see how many popped in water and without. I think that the less water we put, the more popcorn will pop." KK, first grade

Observations:

200 dry kernels

nice and fluffy

200 kernels soaked overnight in 60 ml of water

very few popped kernels

200 kernels with damp (10 ml water) paper towel

oddly shriveled

Data collection:
Of course, we made a chart to organize our data.

Our conclusions:
Don't soak or even dampen your popcorn.  Kernels popped much better when they were not exposed to moisture.  Dampened popcorn popped very loudly with much flying-into-the-air drama but was shriveled and weird, rather than puffed up and delicious, with lots of unpopped kernels.  The soaked kernels were even more of a failure.

In related science news, when I reported our popcorn experiment results, a scientist friend shared that his recent experimentation with "spitcorn" (I know. "Eewww!" Yep, scientists wonder about things . . .) yielded similarly disappointing results. Hmm. Perhaps there is some optimal moisture content? This may require further investigation (with popcorn and moisture--not necessarily "spitcorn"). Science Fair project, anyone?

November is the perfect time to experiment with popcorn--a "New World" food.  A certain second grade boy and I were particularly enthralled with the idea of throwing a handful of kernels into a campfire or using a stick to hold an entire ear of popping corn over the flames of a fire.  There is also evidence that some groups popped popcorn in clay pots filled with hot sand.  The popped kernels popped to the top where they could be easily plucked out and eaten.  Popcorn found in archaeological sites in South America has been so well preserved that it was possible to pop it over 1000 years later!


There's a Book for That!
The Popcorn Book by Tomie dePaola

More About Popcorn
http://www.popcorn.org
microwave popcorn cob

Flower Arranging

In our classroom, every child chooses a job the first week of school.  We discuss what each job entails and the talents and skills required to do the job well.  Then I ask the children who among them thinks that sounds like a good match for their strengths.  We keep our jobs all year because we all need each child to learn to do his/her job well.  We rely on these jobs for the smooth functioning of our classroom, and each child's job is a genuine and important contribution to our community.  If the job is not done, our community suffers.

At the beginning of the year, it is a sometimes exhausting challenge to introduce each child to his/her job and train him/her properly so that it is done well.  However, that initial investment in time pays off.  Like most of the academic work in the classroom, I provide support--with appropriate tools, initial lesson(s), and a routine--and the child takes care of the rest.



As I looked around just before turning off the lights last Friday, I realized how much had been done without any reminders or active involvement on my part.  Tables were scrubbed and dried.  Chairs were put up.  Pencils were sharpened and restored to cubbies and the colored pencil supply box.  Fresh work plans were in folders.  Journals and pencils were on desks, ready for Monday.  Plants (both inside and outside) had been watered.  The birdbath was cleaned and filled.  Cleaning rags and placemats had been gathered and taken home in a bag by the week's laundry volunteer (a schedule is posted inside the cabinet where dust rags--and the laundry bag--are kept so that the children can check to see whose turn it is to do laundry).  Flowers were cut and arranged in vases.

One of our community jobs is Beautiful Classroom Manager.  This child's role is to review the classroom at the end of work time, notice what needs to be straightened, picked up, restored, or organized, and recruit volunteers to do it.  She often straightens our stack of work rugs or neatens the picture story books on the shelf.  She is also charged with flower arranging.

Several families volunteered (on their Parent Surveys) to send a small bouquet of cut flowers.  At the start of the school year, I organized a schedule, assigning each family a date to bring the flowers.  We receive fresh flowers every month or so, and each family only has to send them once.  Again, once a schedule is established, this requires very little effort or involvement on my part.  Mostly, the bouquet arrives in our classroom, and our Beautiful Classroom Manager gets to work. 

One of my Montessori mantras is "Anything a child can do, a teacher shouldn't."  Over this Thanksgiving Break, remember to enlist your child's help in tasks that need to be done around the house and in preparation for dinner.  The children are capable of so much more than we sometimes realize, and now is the time to recruit their help in your family. 

"If teaching is to be effective with young children, it must assist them to advance on the way to independence.  . . . Everyone knows that it requires much more time and patience to teach a child how to eat, wash, and clothe himself than it does to feed, bathe, and clothe him by oneself.  The one who does the former is an educator, the latter performs the lower office of a servant.  But such service is dangerous as well as easy.  One who has too many servants becomes increasingly dependent upon them and eventually their slave." --Dr. Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child

Southern hospitality

apple juice
whole cloves
whole allspice berries
cinnamon sticks
dried orange peel (the small pale floaters)







All morning, hot apple cider simmered on our little-electric-burner-that-could.  I wish this blog had a smell-o-vision app because the classroom filled with all the sweet-spicy coziness of the season.  Luckily, the weather cooperated and the rain brought a cool breeze, only somewhat easing the irony of drinking hot beverages in our shorts.

A new-to-Montessori colleague stopped in to ask one of the children for a Strip Board refresher lesson.  I couldn't help but smile when I overheard our Hospitality Manager greet him with, "Welcome to Room15.  Would like some tea or hot cider?"

Kernel counters?

Not exactly bean counters but . . .




















quite literally counting corn.
















So what are we up to?

Just cooking up some science . . . stay tuned.












There's a Book for That!
The Popcorn Book by Tomie de Paola

Harvest time

Up to our elbows in sweet potato foliage, the children wiggled their fingers down into the dirt and uncovered buried tuber treasure. 

There's a Book for That!

Strega Nona's Harvest by Tomie dePaola

How Groundhog's Garden Grew by Lynne Cherry

Not yet published: Secrets of the Garden by Kathleen Zoehfeld (I can't wait to see this book! I heard about it when Kathy was developing the ideas for the book, and I understand there's a hawk predator!)

Ol' fashioned garden raising?

A dedicated group of parent and child volunteers assembled outside our classroom this morning to transform this

into this!

A raised butterfly/hummingbird habitat, filled with native Texas plants.
How's that for about 2 1/2 hours of work? 

More photos from the transformation coming soon!

There's a Book for That!
The Gardener by Sarah Stewart
Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney

Abuzz about bees

Today's student guest post comes from E.P., second grade, and K.K., first grade:


"Yesterday we went to the Big Buzz Theory presentation.  We saw a queen bee resting with lots of worker bees taking care of her.  There are three kinds of bees.  The queen bee lays all of the eggs.  The worker bees are the female bees.  They do all the work.  Male bees are called drones.  They just sit around and wait to be fed, but when they mate, they die.  At the end, we got a straw of honey."--E.P., second grade


























"Yesterday we learned about bees. We even saw bees! We learned that when a bee stings you, its stinger is pulled off. There is a sack of poison on it. We got to see the queen bee and we got to taste honey straws." --K.K., first grade












There's a Book for That!
Kids Discover Bees

Dirt

"Yesterday we learned about dirt.  There are components of soil.  One of them is sand.  Sand doesn't hold water well.  It drains quickly.  Another is humus.  It has dead things in it.  Gravel looks like tiny white rocks.  Clay is hard when it is dry.  It's sticky when wet. 

Dirt made the pizza in my lunch.  The crust is made out of wheat which needs dirt.  The sauce is made of tomatoes which need dirt.  The cheese is made of milk which comes from cows that eat grass which needs dirt."
 --A.M., 2nd grade






"Dirt Made My Lunch" by the Banana Slug String Band


There's a Book for That!

And the Good Brown Earth by Kathy Henderson

Dirt by Steve Tomecek
Kids Discover Soil
Strega Nona's Harvest by Tomie dePaola


Special thanks to Cherie N., a fabulous Lower Elementary Montessori teacher at a public school in Waco, Texas (where I discovered a tray of soil component work while poking around the shelves in her classroom ), and to Laura C., a former colleague and fabulous Lower Elementary Montessori teacher in Huntsville, Texas, who introduced me to the Dirt song.  Good teaching is all about hunting and gathering great ideas!

Election Day

Our school is a polling place, which makes our Election Day tradition all the more real for the children.








As a child, while I sat coloring during my mother's many League of Women Voters meetings, the importance of voting quietly seeped into my subconscious.  After death, if my mother were to choose an issue over which to haunt, not voting would be high on her list.  It is my hope to infect the children who pass through our classroom doors with the same drive to participate in democracy. 

Every year on Election Day, the citizens of Room 15 hold a Kids' Favorites election.  Before the big day, the children caucus to select candidates for the ballot for categories such as Musical Artists, TV Shows, Movies, Toys, etc.  This morning, each child, as a citizen of Room 15, received a personalized voter registration card.  All morning, eager voters were asking when the polls would open.  "When will we get to vote?"

First, we read Election Day (Rookie Read-About Holidays).  We talked about some of the ways to gather information about candidates and issues in order to become an informed voter: watching political debates, reading the newspaper, or researching the candidates on the internet.  I also showed the children my copy of the League of Women Voters Voter Guide and explained that each candidate's answers to a series of questions are printed just as they were submitted (spelling and grammar errors and all) so that voters can read and decide who would best represent them. 

After a reading of Granddaddy's Gift and a discussion of how voting rights and elections have changed in our country, the children were indignant about all those who were, in the past, excluded from decision-making in our country, and they were even more ready to exercise their right to vote.   I am proud to report that even on a stormy afternoon, I don't think rain, wind, or hail would have kept these voters home! (However, one unfortunate voter did somehow lose his voter registration card in the 45-minute period between receiving it and needing it in order to vote.)  As soon as the polls opened, the children lined up and waited, voter registration certificates in hand. 

Each voter presented his/her voter registration certificate, signed in on the list of registered voters for Precinct 15, and received a paper ballot.

Each voter entered a private voting booth and voted by secret ballot.  Precinct 15 voters were not required to share their choices with anyone.

Finally, voters placed their ballots in the "secure" ballot box (and kept their voter registration certificates in case of a run-off election!).

There's a Book for That!
Election Day (Rookie Read-About Holidays) by Patricia Murphy
Granddaddy's Gift by Margaree King Mitchell