Learning All Around

I always appreciate the chance to watch different people teach the children of Country Classroom. This week we had an excellent experience at the Emma Treadwell Thacher Nature Center. Shannon managed to keep our diverse ages engaged as they talked about what animals do in preparation for winter and looked for interesting insects (and other cool creatures) in the fields and forest. We learned some fun vocabulary like hibernaculum, brumate, torpor, and subnivean. We even found out that wood frogs can freeze during the winter - frog-sicles!

Morgan's PK and K Class

* Worked with the squishy human body learning toy. They thought it was interesting to see what the inside of our bodies looked like! * Used the doctor kit to give each other and the dolls check-ups. They also got the dress-up clothes out to further their doctor play. * Listened to human body books. * Explored shaving cream, coffee grounds, play dough, clay, slime sand, water droppers, sewing shapes and light bright! * Built with Legos and different types of blocks to create different structures then knock them down. * Used the road map to drive cars. They talked about who lived where and how far of a drive they would have to take to get where they needed to be. Some children compared the car city map with the city unit they just finished creating. * Worked with watercolors and thicker paints as well as different textured paper to create lovely pictures. * Made cards for family and friends. * Played different types of counting games and worked on letter identification. * Collected leaves from nature then grouped them, counted out the different colors, and graphed the leaves. * Listened to more Halloween and Fall poems, books and songs! The children drew what they see in the Fall. It will be turned into a class book. * Had a fun time on the field trip to Thacher Park to explore different woods, fields, and the indoor nature center!

Tracy's 1st - 4th Grade Class

In math, we worked on interpreting number stories, talked about the importance of underlining the crucial, and reviewed some of language that clues us into what sort of computations we need to do (ex: difference, all together, etc.). Our second grade class focused on number grid patterns. Our third grade class learned about solving elapsed time problems, fact families, and adding across place value. Our fourth graders worked to convert units of length and learned some new geometry language. They made themselves a "cheat sheet" to reference as they try to remember points, lines, line segments, and rays.

In writing, we have been working on figuring out paragraphs, interesting introductions, and conclusions. Our research projects are mostly done, and students are presenting their projects to the rest of the school this week.

In reading, the younger students have been sorting words by beginning blends and different vowel sounds. We have also been working on building word families. Our "Clementine" group finished their book, and we talked about perspective.

Theme: The Human Body

We started to learn about some of the different systems of the body, particularly the nervous system, the circulatory system, and the digestive system. The Brain is Kind of a Big Deal, The Magic School Bus: Inside the Human Body, and Totally Wacky Facts About the Human Body all gave use interesting information about our bodies. We also experimented to see how our depth perception is impacted by having one eye covered versus having both eyes.