How are you?
After the last post, the friends had the time they needed to think up solutions for the social problems that they would like to see fixed. It was gratifying for them to have so many solutions brought to the table. Many are about self awareness, or being active in speaking up and about getting signs made to clarify agreements. What problem solvers we have!
I have enjoyed watching the children connect with their curriculum ideas in new ways this week. The kids are interested in so many things.
For the math challenge, some of the children began writing their own word problems. This has gone along with much of our other work in that the children are trying to make these as clear as possible. For instance in Avery's, he initially explained that the cars are out of time. When others read this with him we realized that this wasn't clear. He added a carrot to help others understand his concept better.
With this work you can also see the children's attention to detail in their writing skills. The children have been trying to make their work as readable as possible. So much of our daily work overlaps with writing. This makes clarity very important.
The water exploration has lead to some interesting discussions. This week Ben worked further on his inquiry about this image:
His drawing and sentences are beginning to show what he wants to understand. (Sorry I can't get it to be horizontal, but if you click on the image it will be bigger at least!)
In our revisiting meeting today we had a discussion in which the students identified many forces that could be involved in what is shown in the above image. Here is a clip of the discussion:
Ben read part of his composition: The force goes down. How does the dirt grab the water?
Paz: I think the water grabs the dirt.
Peyton: It seems like the water is pushing the dirt down.
Solomon: Water makes paper crumble, so it makes the dirt crumble.
Avery: The water takes some of the dirt away every time it hits the road.
Here friends talked about the water flowing to the ocean, taking the dirt with it.
Solomon: Maybe it dissolves.
Jennifer: Like sugar dissolves in water?
This brought up some other ideas because most friends didn't think the dirt would totally dissolve into water, that it would be like mud and you could see that the water has the dirt still in it.
We left the discussion with more friends who wanted to investigate the forces involved in water flow and erosion. That is the goal of this type of discussion, too! To get more students interested after seeing what others are thinking and theorizing about. Stay tuned!!!
A fun way to think about the parts of sentences and to use up small portions of time between other things in our schedule has been a simple sentence game. I write up a simple sentence and the kids come up with adjectives to add description and to give the reader more information. Of course the kids' humor comes into play, too!
Then, at the end we played with verb options, too. This fun practice for anytime!
I hope this helps you get a glimpse of the many ideas that the children are investigating right now. They are so inquisitive and that is lovely to see alive in them. They are also becoming so great at working together and solving problems. We revisited the issues from the last post and many were ready to share their ideas readily after taking the time to think for themselves. They came up with many possibilities in a small amount of time. This felt very productive and made me feel lucky to be able to witness their fabulousness!
Our first park date was only with two families, but it was very nice. Thank you to Henry and Ocean's family for coming out to connect and enjoy the day together!
I hope you enjoyed your weekend! Love, Jennifer
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