Say goodbye with pancakes

Today, we say goodbye to this school year and send our third-years on their way to Upper Elementary.  It is always a bitter-sweet day.  To soften the transition, we celebrate with pancakes!

Each cooperative group works together one last time to make breakfast and then sits down at the table to eat together and celebrate their year of learning exploration.




With the support of parent volunteers, the children make scrambled eggs,

pancakes,

banana-orange-yogurt smoothies with a squirt of honey and some mint from our courtyard garden,

and real whipped cream to top fresh strawberries.


The children get the opportunity to tackle challenges such as whisking (and more whisking...and more whisking),















cracking eggs,

measuring ingredients,

and flipping pancakes.

The reward for their labor is to sit down and enjoy each other's food and company.

Meanwhile, another group begins cooking.
When one group is finished eating, they work together to clear and set the table for the next group.

On this special day, children are invited to get comfy with pillows and books for a read-a-thon

or enjoy board games and other non-electronic fun.

checkers

mancala

folding paper airplanes and testing for the best design

Fun in the Sun

But not without sunscreen!

After we've sealed up our classroom and pushed it to the side, in preparation for summer, it's important that the learning continue, even without our usual materials.  Instead of independent work, we spend the last days before we say goodbye together in community. 

When I asked the children to brainstorm about fun learning activities they'd like to do together the last days of school, one of the things on the list was science experiments.  Of course, I love that!

A colleague was clearing out a cabinet in preparation for summer storage and came across a box of Solar UV beads.  These beads are a perfect opportunity for an experiment designed to teach sun safety. 

For this experiment, you will need:
* UV beads (I snuck outside and sorted the beads in the sunlight so that each group got 4 beads of a single color)
* pipe cleaners (4 for each group)
* 3 Q-tips for each group for applying the "mystery coatings"
* A set of 4 hole-punched index cards for each group, labeled Control, #1, #2, #3
* Mystery Coating 1
* Mystery Coating 2
* Mystery Coating 3

For the mystery coatings, I selected three white substances that were about the same creamy consistency and transferred samples into containers labeled 1, 2, and 3.

First, the children observe their beads in the classroom, where they look like plain white translucent pony beads.

Next, they take their bowl of four beads outside into the sunlight, where they change dramatically. 

Next, the children take the beads into the shade and observe.

The children return to the classroom and observe as the beads return to their colorless status.

Now that we've done some experimenting with how the beads behave, we are ready to add the mystery coatings.

A pipe cleaner is pushed through each bead and then looped through the hole in one of the index cards.  The bead on the card labeled "Control" is left without any coating.  For each of the others, the mystery coating identified on the card's label is applied to the bead with a Q-tip.  Remind the children to use a fresh Q-tip with each coating.

Each group took their coated beads outside to find out which mystery coating is most effective in blocking UV rays.

The big reveal

Control: no coating

Mystery Coating 1: plain yogurt

Mystery Coating 2: sunscreen

Mystery Coating 3: lotion

 

Sunscreen (Mystery Coating #2) is the clear winner!  Apply regularly when you are exploring outdoors this summer!

Better than cable:

Dinos After Dark

If you've read Night at the Museum or seen the movies by the same name, you may have wondered what really goes on in museums after they close.

Actually, that's usually when I find myself there!  I volunteer at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, but because I teach on weekdays, mostly I am either helping out in the field or at the museum after dark.  I love poking around the museum when it's closed and we have the gorgeous Paleontology Hall to ourselves.

A few times a year, a small crew (usually 3-4 of us) assembles to dust the dinosaurs.

You might have visions of cute feather dusters, but Dave steers a lift to get up close to the fossils, and John wields a wand, attached by an air line to a compressor, to spray pressurized air that knocks the dust off the old bones.

My jobs include making sure the electrical cords and air line are not smashed by the wheels of the lift, vacuuming the petrified wood, dusting the wall mounts ever so carefully with a makeup brush, and occasionally vacuuming the tops of the walls that divide the space and guide your journey
through the hall.

Staring into the skeletal face of a dinosaur




or stepping into the ammonite garden to brush dust from the giant ammonites (my favorite fossil--doesn't everyone have a favorite fossil?) creates a more intimate relationship with the past than the casual visitor gets.  It feels as if I'm checking in with old friends.





The shadows are more dramatic at night, and the quiet shifts the hall to more of a meditative sanctuary than a field trip destination.

This time, though, we were not entirely alone. First, we were joined by painters, freshening up the white of the walls and exhibit bases.  Seeing the dinos in their booties, like respectful workmen on new carpet, made me giggle.

Next, we were joined by a school group from Louisiana who were spending the night at the museum.  Clipboards in hand, they were on a scavenger hunt mission in the hall.  On the heels of Screen-Free Week, I was overjoyed to hear one young man remark, "Dude, this is better than cable T.V.!  Seriously.  Look at all these dinosaurs!"

Happy Mother's Day!

Little elves have been busy in Room 15, creating beautiful magnet gifts for the important women in their lives.












This is a great re-use project to do on the heels of Earth Day, but I didn't plan far enough in advance to collect enough Altoids tins without asking parents.  So I had to send out a last-minute e-mail plea (well, 2 weeks ahead).  A very generous friend worried that the children would not bring in enough tins and someone (or more than one someone) would be without.  So he purchased a case of Altoids at Costco. With those, along with what the children did bring in and the ones I found squirreled away in my "children's crafts" box, we had plenty!

I spent a Friday night visiting two Walmarts, a Jo-Ann, and a Michael's to gather the necessary supplies:
* Clear gel glue
* Glass marbles (One big bag from Walmart for ~$4.70 was more than enough for our class of 24!)
* Lovely printed craft papers (On sale at Jo-Ann)
* Magnets (This year, I sprang for the peel-and-stick dot magnets from Walmart)--4 for each student

To reduce waste, I cut the papers into 4x3" rectangles (to line and cover the tins) and inch-wide strips (to be cut into circles for the magnets).
The children selected their papers,

and began to cut and craft.

They were angelically peaceful, absorbed in their work!

The results are just gorgeous!  Every child is so very proud of the gift s/he created.

Screen-Free Week

Editor's Note: This post is authored by S. H., third grader

This week is Screen Free Week.  Screen Free Week is when you don't use screens for fun.  It is a good idea because you don't want to get addicted to T.V.  Also, you need to get exercise.  Last, television isn't good for your brain.

Yesterday, we read two books.  They were Library Lil and Aunt Chip and the Great Triple Creek Dam Affair.  In both books, they said everybody was watching too much T.V. and they didn't read.  Then a person taught people to read, and the people started to enjoy books.

Ten things to do instead of screens are:
* read a book,
* fly a kite,
* go swimming,
* play board games,
* play on the playground,
* do origami,
* go biking,
* cook,
* play with a pet, or
* garden.

I did Screen Free last night, and I read a book.

Celebrating Earth Day with Artist Boat

In honor of Earth Day, Artist Boat offered a sampling of their programs today for free to teachers.  I couldn't pass up an opportunity to spend a beautiful morning kayaking and creating art along the Coastal Heritage Preserve in Galveston.  We were rewarded with sightings of Roseate Spoonbills, Brown Pelicans (a conservation success story), a Great Blue Heron, a Great Egret (catching a fish!), and a Cormorant.

Artist Boat is a fantastic non-profit that educates the public about our coastal ecology by combining kayak exploration with watercolor artwork.  It's a brilliant combination!  Strapped to each tandem kayak is a plastic box containing two sets of non-toxic watercolors and two boards taped off with watercolor paper.  Sometime during the trip, we stop our kayaks for a brief art lesson and then pull out the art supplies to create a watercolor right in the kayak.  Making art pushes us to slow down and look at nature more closely, to pay attention in a different way.

Through grants, Artist Boat has also acquired land along the coast, which they are working to restore by planting native coastal grasses and removing fire ants, red ants, and other invasive species.  In addition to their kayak adventures, Artist Boat also does some land-based hikes, habitat restoration, and field labs that include water quality testing and seining to identify the wildlife in the shallow coastal waters.

I've had several opportunities to participate in trips with this amazing organization over the years: A "Headwaters to Baywaters" professional development series on our watershed, a professional development and team-building day organized by my school, and a birthday celebration I organized with my family.

Just two weeks ago, I participated in another Educator Kayak Adventure offered free to teachers in collaboration with FotoFest.  For this adventure, we kayaked across Lake Charlotte (in Cedar Hill Park) and through the Cypress Swamp of the lower Trinity River region.

Consider taking a public Artist Boat kayak adventure with your family!  It's a great way to get outside and learn about our local coastal habitats!
Then, visit the new Hall of Texas Coastal Ecology at the Houston Museum of Natural Science to learn more!