The Rookery

These games and activities use keyboard controls.  The ones that are made using Scratch can be modified by you. Dodge It! – Scratch game in which you try to get away from multiplying squares. Dice Roll – A building block for something… Makey Piano – Very basic piano on Scratch…

The Herons had a very special visit this afternoon from Peg Hassett's mother, "Mrs. B."  Peg volunteers with us through the DART program which places retired volunteers in Dakota County classrooms.  She is also a special person in J.S.'s life (which is how we met her this past December.) When…

On Monday, we began a new electricity theme with a seemingly simple assignment:  using a paperclip and a battery, make a lightbulb light.  The Herons were asked to record every solution they tried and note whether it worked or not. Most thought that it would be easy.  But soon I…

  Another great day.  Sunny and, thanks to our incredible gear, "warm."

  We had a wonderful first day.  Everyone does everything eventually.  Today the Herons survived in the wild, the Kestrels conquered the ropes course and the Robins had an epic adventure snowshoeing on the Superior Trail.  In the evening, groups went on a night hike, rock climbed and directed owl…

We have been looking at different forms of visual information recently as part of our non-fiction study.  Some visual information formats such as the scale drawing are familiar to students but others, such as the procedural drawing or the visual glossary are new.  We are learning about visual information to…

No, this blog isn't about our recent puberty education conversations* but instead about our personal projects.  On Monday, Cathy and I had the pleasure of speaking about the honors project (and by extension the 4th grade project at the Northfield School Board meeting.)  It was our annual report to our…

On Thursday before break, the Herons participated in Hour of Code.  It's an international project which encourages people to learn a little bit about how to write computer code.  Many different learning platforms have activities designed to teach folks some basics in about an hour of time and we used…