The Rookery

Several days last week, I loaded children onto the bus while they were still chanting "Join the Sons of Liberty" or "Long live the King" at each other.  I overheard students talking at lunch about the "blockish King" and before school times have been a frenzy of flag making.  This…

We began our exploration math by, well, exploring pentominoes.  In this blog entry I want to share what the class did and then show, in bold, the math habit that we (teachers) were working to develop.   First, we began by establishing a definition of an "-omino."  An -omino was a…

This past week we wrapped up our first Writing Circle cycle.  Writing Circle is a workshop format that accelerates a student's understanding of writing for an audience.  In a traditional writing workshop, students conference individually with peers but especially teachers.  Sharing one's work is important but, because of the constraints of…

We had a near perfect day at Caron Park.  It was wonderful to have so much time together – and the warm weather kept everyone cheerful. We began at the Motherland – a waterfall where three creeks come together in the center of the park.  Exploration teams headed in three…

This summer I visited the PROMYS program for a day.  It's a six week program for teachers and advanced high school students that explores number theory at a college level.  The kids are there because they want to spend their summer doing math.  The teachers are there because they want…

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…

The first day always flashes by.  About two and a half hours into the morning, a child asked me how long we'd been at school.  I told him.  His eyes got big, "Gosh, it feels like 10 minutes!"  Every moment is precious and begins to create our community.  Who are…

This summer, my family made a trip to the City Museum in St. Louis.  It's hard to describe.  It's like a giant sculpture you can climb through, explore and get lost in.  There's a giant whale, rebar tunnels, underground labyrinths, a limestone cave, a 10 story swirly slide, a giant…

The Herons ventured out on the Oregon Trail on Thursday.  Well, actually, we loaded our wagons on Thursday and set out on Friday.  We had a few spare hours in the schedule before May Day – not enough for a full blown theme but enough for a short exploration and…

Yesterday, we began a mini-theme on lichen.  Let me take a moment to rhapsodize about lichen.  They're crazy.  They are an organism that contains both fungus and algae – the fungus provides the structure for the organism.  The algae (or, in some cases,cyanobacteria) make food for the organism through photo…