The Rookery

Making (and tasting) shrubs with Margit. Fourth and fifth graders are able to be two places at one time.  Developmentally, they are just now able to pretend…and know they are pretending.  They haven't lost the skills of creative play but they have gained the skills of analysis.  Because of this, role…

Our day took an unexpected turn today when I heard a murmur about teasing on the bus.  It seemed that there was a fair amount of drama about who had a crush on whom.  I brought it up to the Herons in our class meeting and yes, it was going…

We are in the midst of a geometry rotation right now and I am teaching about angles and triangles.  Geometry is a branch of mathematics that has a lot of vocabulary in it — and it can be tempting to start there: acute, obtuse, perpendicular.  But students need understanding on…

Counting our line plot data to determine mode. Working with real data and analyzing what it's telling us is an on-going project in fourth and fifth grade.  I have come to believe that it's one of the most important skills citizens in a democracy need.  We are bombarded with studies…

It seemed we couldn't go more than a few feet without encountering another wonder.  On Friday, naturalist John Latimer came to talk with the Herons and take a walk with us.  We headed out the green doors and showed him the fruiting magnolia tree we'd been watching.  He was amazed…

This week we had a great discussion about our Internet and computer use contract.  It began, of course, with a conversation about always understanding everything in a contract before you signed it!  That imperative led to a rich, lively and, I hope, meaningful exchange.  I've shared parts of our contract…

In much of the world, students don't learn "math" they learn "maths" — I think it's an apt way to think about mathematics, especially at Prairie Creek.  We don't learn math in a single way at a single time but instead weave instruction into a variety of blocks during our…

There is nothing like the first day of school.  We are nervous and excited. Eager to meet new classmates and a little sad about friends who have moved on to new schools.  Ready to do new things and ready to return to old stories and routines. We began the day…

This summer I am taking a class in number theory.  Number theory is defined as the study of integers (whole numbers) but is also a lot about how numbers work.  It's something I knew of and had played with a little but it didn't go much deeper than that. As adults,…

Happy Summer!  I often find that August is a good time to reboot my summer intentions — the basement is still not cleaned out, ditto that back corner of the yard.  It's also a good time to set up routines that will flow into the school year.  I don't mean…