The Rookery

The 4/5 classess have begun our regular math routine. We spend 15 minutes in foundation math, reviewing and learning the basic skills necessary to solve problems in math. The rest of our time, about 55 minutes, is spent in exploration math. In our first exploration math unit, we are studying…

Today, the Herons left school singing.  They were trying to figure out all the words to an epicly long song we sang at our campout.  One child would remember one part, another would fill in the next.  They bopped along, working together, laughing and content as they left the building.…

Today we had our first math talk.  It's a technique that I learned more about while taking an on-line course from Jo Boaler this summer.  The focus of her research is shifting math students from a fixed mindset about their math ability to a growth model which enables them to…

As you may have heard by now, the Herons put on a play for the whole school on Friday about the Life Cycle of the Cicada.  That's right.  A culminating event…on Day 4. They planned and wrote the play in the morning, breaking into committees to get costumes together and…

Today began with our annual Blue Book celebration.  We use the Blue Books to capture all of our learning – they are fat with papers and pictures and artifacts by the end of the year.  Today we simply numbered the pages and marveled at what was to come.    …

The first day of the first six weeks of school is a crazy mix of setting up routines, establishing norms, getting to know each other, having fun, and planting seeds for the weeks ahead.  The fifth graders do an amazing job of setting the tone in the classroom — when…

Recently, I took my sons and a friend up to the Science Museum for an afternoon.  We began outside in the "Big Back Yard" area, hanging out at the stream table.  And hang out we did.   We spent more than an hour diverting the water here, making giant lakes…

Today some intrepid gardeners and I finished up the test plots and put them out on the roof.  The current question is whether or not we should have Simon water them during July if it doesn't rain much.  One of our criteria is that our garden should be able to…

I hope that many of you will be able to come to Prairie Creek's first annual volunteer appreciation event this Wednesday morning.  Even if you aren't able to come, please know how grateful I am of everything volunteers have done for the Herons and the school this year. I feel…

        We have continued work on our roof garden.  I have been very excited by how the theme has taken shape.  On Tuesday, we set out to map our gardens.  We wanted to be able to see how much our plants had grown (or which plants we…