The Rookery

The week before projects always surprises me (one would think I would learn from experience).  We begin the week with 4th graders who seem to have an insane amount to do and then, by the end of the week, everyone has a finished paper, everyone has a poster, and everyone…

Nancy Gregerson, a counselor here in Northfield who visited us earlier in the year to talk about self esteem, returned last Wednesday to talk to us about pro-active curriculum we could enact that would help kids have a foundation of understanding about themselves that we could use when conflict or…

Thank you for supporting the Herons in coming to their Electricity Museum.  What a success it was!  They received numerous compliments throughout the day on how well they knew their information and on their presentations.  Enjoy the video below of their day.   

Thanks to our school's wonderful Catalyst Grant*, five other teachers and I spent the last part of spring break on a retreat up North.  While there, we took a class on spoon carving at North House Folk School. "Spoon carving?" you may well be asking, "Why?!"  Well, none of us…

I'm typing this while I watch the fifth graders practicing for the reading MCAs.  I feel very grateful that I'm at a school in which test prep is put in what I consider its proper perspective.  We'll spend about an hour getting acclimated to the format of the reading test…

In the week before spring break, we were very busy — motors, Morse code, static electricity, lightning, capacitors, and electrolysis were all on the docket. We'd spent so much time on current electricity that Rachel and I were excited to explore static charge with the students.  Rachel's mini-lesson on lightning…

4th graders received their invitation to join Northfield's 5th grade band.  It's a very popular program at Prairie Creek.  Often on band days, students give spontaneous concerts but on Thursday they gave a more formal presentation, inviting the 4th graders to ask questions about individual instruments.  Here's a snippet of…

We were very lucky to have Eric Johnson (S.W.'w neighbor) come in today to share his energy expertise.  Little did I know when Eric contacted me to collect information about our solar panel that he would be such a resource.  As he explained to the Herons, some people have baseball…

Rachel and I know better than to trust the internet.  That's why we both tried to make lemon juice batteries this weekend.  When they didn't work, we compared notes did some more research and thought we'd gotten the wrinkles ironed out.  Time for the big leagues – a lesson with…

The Big Birds had a wonderful day on Tuesday celebrating pi.  Yes, we were a day late (March 14 is officially Pi day because the date is 3/14 or 3.14) but it gave everyone time to memorize a few extra digits.  Students either measured the circles to discover the ratio…