Robin's Egg Blue

May Day

The weather held out and we had a joyous celebration of spring, peace, and our amazing community.

 

Village!

Now that village has begun, all blogging will happen over at the Village blog. Check in regularly--we post almost daily.

Game Time

Thank you again to the parents who purchased a gift certificate to Monkey See for the Robins. I spent it on games, and the Robins have been enjoying them recently.

What We've Been Up To

Since honoring week ended, we've been up to a variety of activities, some pleasant (May Day prep! Writing lessons with Greta!), some not (MCAs). To catch you up:

Writing lessons with Greta

Greta is preparing to be a teacher, and for one of her classes she needed to plan and teach five writing lessons. The Robins were lucky to be her class for this work. Greta guided the Robins in planning and writing memoirs of their time at Prairie Creek. She is currently in the process of having them typed (thanks again, Marianne and Nancy!) and putting them up on a blog. When it's ready, I'll share the link with you. Note: she did make it optional for kids to post their writing.

May Day Prep

Our May Day theme this year is Peace. We've met together in our bird buddy groups to prepare t-shirts, head bands, shakers, chains of paper cranes, and other goodies to wear or carry in our annual May Day parade. Also, the fifth graders have been practicing the May Pole dance, and the fourth graders have been practicing the music they will play to accompany the dance.

We've also been busy preparing for May conferences. We do this before we start Village, because once Village begins, it's an intense and all-encompassing experience. Village will start on Friday!

Trip to River Bend

Today the Robins, Herons and Chickadees went to River Bend. The Robins and Herons took a water quality class. The Robins went to the pond and the Herons went to the river. We did tests of pH, turbidity, and oxygen levels. We also measured the depth and temperature of the water. Then, students got to use a dip net to catch and observe critters. The Robins had to be dragged away from the buckets of critters; they could have stayed much longer. You might consider getting a dip net and a bucket and taking a family field trip to River Bend.

Honoring Week

It has been a busy week! As always, I was very impressed with the honors project presentations I got to watch. Thanks to the parents and mentors who shepherded the students through the process!

Solo Instrument Recital: Robins

 

"This is good stuff!"

The last day before spring break, especially when the weather already feels like late spring, can be challenging for kids (and, let's be honest, for teachers). The Friday before break in the Robins, I planned pond aquarium explorations for the afternoon, followed by some outside time. It turned into a very exciting afternoon.

First, you need some background. On Wednesday, RD's dad brought us some minnows.

By the next day, one of the fish had died. This led us to a discussion of whether or not it was ethical for us to be keeping the fish (the class unanimously agreed that it was) and the possible reasons that the fish had died. We had discussions and debates about what interventions we should use to try to keep the fish alive: a bubbler in the tank to provide oxygen? Fish food? These discussions allowed the students to think about ponds as ecosystems and also about scientific research. They agreed that they wanted to keep our pond aquarium as much like a real pond as possible, (and also the bubbler that I found in the basement stirred up the water and made observations difficult), so they decided not to use any interventions. We discussed biotic and abiotic factors that allow a pond to function as an ecosystem, and we recognized that our aquarium will never be completely like a natural ecosystem. This discussion allowed students to think carefully about the kinds of decisions that scientists must make in trying to learn about the natural world.

When more fish died, we returned to the debate about the bubbler and the fish food. This time, the students decided that we should leave the bubbler in over spring break, but wait on fish food until we see how the fish do with the bubbler. The students naturally understand the idea of holding variables constant in order to try and determine cause and effect. 

So, on that last Friday before break, I had planned an afternoon of reading about pond life, observing our aquarium, preparing slides and looking at them under the microscopes, and recording observations. This is all motivating stuff, and the students were happy. But when it was discovered that we had another dead fish in the bottom of the tank (this determination took some time, as some of us thought that dead fish floated), RD asked if he could dissect it. And I thought, "Why not?" As often happens in the life of a progressive teacher, a student had an emergent idea, and I applied my quick judgment to the situation: would it hurt anyone? was it worth the time? would students learn from the experience? I decided that if we were just going to throw the fish away, we might as well see what was inside first. The students quickly entered that territory between fascinated and disgusted, with some closer to fascination and others closer to disgust.

[Warning: If you'd be someone covering his eyes, you might want to skip the remaining photos.]

A Day in the Life of our Classroom

Today was one of those days when things felt really exciting and progressive in our classroom. The morning began with IA bringing snails for our pond aquarium:

 

 

 

 

Students have been choosing to observe and record those observations during independent reading. They have identified small creatures, and lately we've seen green shoots growing amidst the brown muck at the bottom of the tank. The snails were a new element in the ecosystem that students were eager to watch:

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile, JJ had brought a Russian army helmet to share, and he and CS found a book and were trying to learn more about it:

 

 

A bit later that morning, we had Bird Buddies. I put out several different types of art materials and invited the multiage group of students to sketch in their nature journals. Some students chose to look at photos, and others chose objects from the cabinet of curiosities. 

 

 

 

 

After lunch, the Robins took samples from the pond aquarium and looked at them under a microscope. They learned how to prepare a slide and how to focus the microscopes. There was much excitement as they found cells and critters to observe. We used the dichotomous key of pond life that Greta brought us to try and identify what we had found. Students crowded around the microscopes to take turns looking at interesting slides. I anticipated that students might want to spend a lot of time on this, so I put "TBA" on our schedule after theme. AN asked, "Can we skip TBA and keep doing this instead?" Of course. I had to use my firm voice when it was time to move to clean-up; students would have continued exploring past the hour they ended up getting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a really great day!

Is That a Water Flea?

In theme, we are studying life science. We began with building some background knowledge and created posters about topics such as predator and prey; ecosystems and food webs; producer, consumer and decomposers; and carnivore, omnivore, and herbivores. Next, we did some reading and discussion about wolves. Wolves are a great lens through which to help kids think about the balance between predator and prey, and also about the impact that humans have on ecosystems. We were especially interested in the delisting of the wolf and the possible wolf hunt that the DNR is discussing for Minnesota. (I encourage you to follow media coverage of that issue with your child.) Tomorrow I will also start reading aloud from the New York Times' "Scientist at Work" blog, which is periodically featuring entries from a scientist studying wolves and moose on Michigan's Isle Royale.

But the big excitement now is our pond aquarium. J.J.'s dad was kind enough to bring us five gallons of pond water last week. We have begun formal observations of the water, along with recording predictions and thinking about experiments we want to try. We will visit River Bend Nature Center on April 13 for their water testing class. We've already had some offers to bring more pond critters, as well as some debate about which ones we'd like to add (leeches?). We'll continue to use the aquarium to inspire more learning about life sciences. The introduction of the pond water is a great reminder to me about how fascinated kids are by animals (even microscopic ones--they are sure they've identified water fleas zipping about in there). Students gravitated to the aquarium first thing this morning. They commented on how much clearer the water is today. I love the truly emergent nature of this aspect of our theme: J.J. had asked if he could bring in pond water, and I found an empty aquarium in the basement. We truly don't know what we'll see as we continue to observe the water. Other students are excited to bring things to contribute. And all around the observations I'll be connecting students to text, helping them to record observations, showing them how to create visuals (such as diagrams), and supporting them as they design experiments. Greta supplied us with a great dichotomous key of pond life. If you have any resources that would support our study, please share!