Drawing

Yesterday, we walked to the Kentler Gallery in Red Hook. We looked at drawings and sculptures that artists have made of plants around the city. We paid particular attention to the ways that plants can appear in the city either planted by people or growing wild. At the gallery, we drew. On the way to the gallery, we took photographs. [Andrew with photos by Abby and Theo]

Building Our Own Lighthouse

After our trip on Wednesday, we took our on-site drawings and created models of the Little Red Lighthouse out of whatever materials we thought we needed. Some of the buildings included details like the spiral staircase in the center, the windows in the side, the fences on the bottom and top, and the concrete slab that the lighthouse sits on. [Andrew with photos by Alain]

What It Feels Like to Be a Building

On 11/16/07, we read a book called What It Feels Like to Be a Building. We learned some new things about buildings and shapes. Our names were on pieces of paper and were picked out of the jar, so we could go to perform something in the book. Lisa (Nikita's mom) came in to read the book and teach us. But one time she asked all of us to make an arch. Here are some words we learned: beam, squash, arch, column, corbel. [Lena and Nikita]

The Little Red Lighthouse

Our class went to the Little Red Lighthouse on Wednesday with Maria Cadillac's class, and we got to take pictures inside of the Little Red Lighthouse. We got to look at the Hudson River. 15 kids at a time could go in the Little Red Lighthouse. When those kids came out, they ate lunch, then 15 other kids went in. Then after all the kids came out, everyone took their social studies notebook and did homework - not real homework but questions we had to answer like that. When everybody was done, four kids were making a movie, then they all got bored, so some of those kids went to play tag with other kids that already started to play tag. [Sofia and Asha]

From Elijah's notebook

From Layla's notebook

From Leila's notebook

From Tomáš's notebook

More Poetry

Of course we are still writing poetry this week. Asha and Joshua recorded theirs, and you can hear them below. When you listen to Joshua's poem, see if you can find the comparisons that he made - there are four of them. Comparison is the poet's tool that we've been studying, and Joshua went back to revise an earlier poem just so he could add a few. [Andrew]

Asha "Marbles"

Joshua "Pokemon"

Choice Time This Week

Alex is writing a Pokemon story. Theo is making a submarine out of Kinex. Renee is building a big house out of straws. Matthew is making a picture of an artist with watercolor. Kamau is building a tunnel out of Kapla blocks. Joshua is making a scrap building out of paper. Autumn is making a dotted picture with watercolor. [Isabel M. with photos by Matthew]

Newspaper Buildings

Today we experimented with more materials to find out how buildings are made so strong. We rolled newspaper into logs and then tried to make free-standing structures that would be big enough to fit a 2nd grader! [Andrew]

Watching Pigeons

Our observations of pigeons continued last week. First we studied the different colors that pigeon feathers can take, and then we went outside to tally the birds we saw. Most of us agreed that there were more spread and blue bar pigeons around the school. [Andrew]