Mapping from Home to School

We've been working on maps that trace our trips from home to school.
Students used small manipulatives to tell a story about how they travel to school, starting with home, what they saw along the way, and how they got to school.

Lifting a Crayon Without Lifting a Crayon

In science we have been exploring and building mechanisms with pivots, gears, pulleys and now - water wheels. Today the challenge was to find a way to lift a crayon just by squirting some water. [Andrew]

Adam

Alain

Ibuki

MAPS

Right now we are focusing on maps. We are drawing maps of everything. We made cities out of pattern blocks, Legos and just plain blocks, and then we had to draw maps of them. And Nichole drew our classroom, but she didn't add everything to it, and we had draw the rest and put an X next to our table spot on the map (it was a map right), and then Nichole handed them back out, but she had shuffled them so we didn't get our own, and we had to try to find the table, and we had to sit in that person's table-spot. And we had to make a map of each other's lunch box and make a key. Do you want me to tell you what a key is? You say yes? OK, I will tell you. You draw a picture of somthing in the corner of a paper that has pictures of the things that you drew and it says what they are and that's all for now bye. [Isabel R.]

Printing Buildings

On February 14, most of us finished our masterpieces. They were both printed and painted. They were very pretty - plus there were all sorts. There were schools and theaters and skyscrapers. I think you get my point. Anyway... then we had to write stories about them and some of them were pretty interesting like Adams - it was called The Air Problem, and Leilas was called The Story of Restaurant Gastovo, and mine - The Robbery, and Lena's was called Banza, and Theo's was called Cross Over Building. So you get my point. [Isabel R and Lena]

Toy Mechanisms

On the 1st of February Abby and Andrew's class finished toy mechanisms (most of us). Here are the steps we took. 1st we had to figure out what mechanism 1 and mechanism 2 looked like. Then made them out of wooden links. Next we decided what our mechanisms would look like and drew them in our science notebooks. Then we started making them with pivots and paper links. Now we're decorating them to look like a real toy. For example I made a person eating pizza, Sofia made her sister kicking a soccer ball, Briana made a person eating an apple, Alain made himself falling off a chair, Joshua made Spiderman swinging to the Empire State Building and back to the Chrysler. [Isabel R]

Movement Performance

This week we had our final movement period. We had been working for three weeks on duets, and we got to perform them for other classes and for some parents, too. In these duets, partners choreographed their own dances. That means that we decided what movements we wanted to do, we wrote them down, practiced them and learned them by heart. [Andrew with photos by Zo's mom, Deb]

Calligraphy with Naomi

On the 4th of January, Abby and Andrew's class made calligraphy with Naomi (Ibuki's mom). First, she showed us some calligraphy that had been printed on the computer (I think), and we had to guess what it meant. Then we got to draw some... well, rather, write some calligraphy of our own on rice paper! It seemed rather exiting even though we got ink all over our hands. [Isabel R] By the way - take a look at these wonderful websites that Naomi recommended to us: Origami Club and Kids Web Japan.

Antwan

Zo