The Rookery

Blue Books

On the second day of school, the 4/5s received their Blue Books.  The 5th graders were amazed at how skinny the books were.  By the end of the year, most of them will be stuffed, quite literally, with what we have learned.  We took a few moments to share advice about how to use the Blue Books – the wisdom of the 5th graders is heeded much more carefully by the 4th graders than yet more directives from us.  Then students spread out around the upstairs to number all of the pages.  This is labrious but helps children keep the book organized and ensures they can show you around their work come January conferences.  (Note, you can always click on small photos to enlarge them.

Natural History

Most of the Herons have shared the objects they brought in for our natural history museum.  Each object seemed to hold a mystery that we wanted to explore a bit more.  How old was it?  How do we know?  How did it form?  Are they rare?  Why is it that color?  How does it make that color, anyway?  I had to cut off discussion after almost every share.  

One of the things I try to foster in the Herons is the sense that everything holds the potential to be fascinating.  We got out the school's set of jewler's magnifying lenses and discovered that each item we looked at (and thought was cool) became even more amazing when we were able to look at its structure.  Each layer reveals more to engage us.

Map Exploration

One of my favorite things to do is pore over maps – finding new things, wondering about a world far away.  In a continuation of our world making project (the Herons took notes on landforms on Thursday), we looked at maps from Prairie Creek's large map collection.  Students were charged to find 3 cool things and ask 2 questions inspired by the map they chose.

Work started surprisingly slowly – some students weren't sure where to start.  This sometimes happens with such an open-ended assignment but I've found that open exploration often makes our work more exciting and authentic in the end. The things that are discovered come from the students who feel true ownership – I haven't led them right to the answer.  Finally a group found "Bikini Island" and shared it with their neighbors who found "Christmas Island" and showed it to their neighbors and everyone was off.  One child noticed that all of the big cities on her map seemed to be on oceans or rivers.  One found a symbol of an airplane and discovered how keys work (which sent a good portion of the class searching for the coolest symbols on their maps. (Shipwrecks!))  Another wondered what color could mean on a map.  Others asked where certain things got their names (and who decides those names, anyway?)  We'll continue to look at (and make) a variety of maps as the theme continues.

Chat and Chew

I chose a deliberately cheesy name for a new social curriculum element I am trying out this year.  On Friday, I asked every child to share three students with whom he or she would like to eat lunch, one child he or she would like to get to know better and one child who had been an outstanding Heron in the past week.  I used their responses to assign lunch tables for the upcoming week.  We'll have some direct instruction on social graces in the next weeks and students will get a chance to try out the lessons (and get to know each other better) at lunch.  Tomorrow's lesson will be on reciprocal conversation.

I am also using the students' responses to watch for social trends in the classroom and be alert for students who might be having trouble connecting with peers.  Of course, asking students to name one student they'd like to get to know better makes explicit my hope that the Herons seek each other out and connect.  We will work hard to build a community that watches out for and reaches out to every member.

We won't have assigned tables for the whole year.  After these first weeks, we might do it one day a week or even less.  However, I want to proactively develop lots of connections among the students before many social patterns are established.  I want the students to be aware of the possibilities for friendships that they might never have considered.