The Rookery

     Today we took a bit of time out of our regular math routine to celebrate the wonder of math.  It was Pi Day (3/14) and we gathered together to wonder at the number that is pi — it may be an irrational way to spend the morning, but hey.…

One of the challenges (and joys) of teaching Forest School has been creating curriculum on the fly (no pun intended) to match the weather.  Two weeks ago, I had planned to have the Herons sketch the square foot patches they had chosen last fall – the popsicle stick markers were…

"It's useful…actually." these were the words of a fifth grader when talking about our puberty education talks.  Someone had erased that part of the day from the schedule and I took that as an opportunity for the class to talk about how challenging it can be to talk about puberty.…

Heading Home – The Herons, Fall 2016 Our yearly auction is coming up and I know you are inundated right now with reminders and raffle tickets and invitations.  Please know, we wouldn't have an auction unless we needed to.  We are a public school.  Public schools should be truly free.…

The Herons were at the ropes course, looking up at all of the events before we tried them out.  Some were excited; some were nervous.  Our leader, Emma, asked what we would need.  One child volunteered, "Courage!"  Emma pressed a little, "What do you mean?"  Another Heron, who I knew…

Another wonderful day (funny how any day after a first afternoon of rain is a "wonderful day").  Tomorrow night we'll have our closing campfire so we won't be posting a video.  We can't share our adventures with you upon our return on Friday.    

Day two dawned sunny and dry.  We had too many highlights to list, but here are thirty:    

We had a great first day.  Yes, it rained.  But the kids were in high spirits.  They persevered and even had fun.  It even looks like we're going to get to cross country ski!  Best of all, they've upgraded the internet so I was able to upload the video in…

Wolf Ridge and Fourth Grade Week are central in our calendar – often it feels like we are doing a lot "before Wolf Ridge" and a lot "after Wolf Ridge."  Fourth grade week and Wolf Ridge stand alone – busy, to be sure, but a different kind of busy.  It's…

Some recent conversations with students have gotten me thinking.  One shared that a video they'd watched in spanish was 2 1/2 minutes long.  "So I started doing the math and figured out that 8.3% of our class was the video…I think," she said.  Another shared that he'd been bored on…