Thursday, January 28, 2010

Ecosystems

We've been at working making 'ecosystem mobiles' the last few weeks. We'd been talking a lot about ecosystems in recent weeks, looking at what ecosystems having common with 'community', a key concept in our program, and also how the gardens we are growing are part of larger ecosystems.

Students then created their own mini ecosystem mobiles. After looking at the work of Alexander Calder, and thinking about how like an ecosystem, a mobile is a type of art where the pieces interact with each other, students got to work, creating a version of an ecosystem of their choosing: lots of oceans, but also some forests, rainforests, swamps, deserts, jungles, farms, gardens and even a pond!

Ecosystem project

Ecosystem mobiles

Ecosystem mobiles

Ecosystem mobiles

Ecosystem mobiles

Ecosystem mobiles

Ecosystem mobiles

Student work - ecosystems

Ecosystem project

Ecosystem project

Ecosystem project

Amazing penguins done for our ecosystem project by three 4th graders!

Monday, January 18, 2010

Happy MLK Day

"You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love..."
-MLK

Journal work- MLK as done by a K student!
Drawing of Martin Luther King Jr. done by one of our Kinder students in his journal last week!

Thursday, January 07, 2010

Seeds are growing!

We were really excited to get back to school after winter break; new projects await, and a chance to check our seeds we planted before we went on vacation.

As we expected, they sprouted over the break - students were very impressed with the results! Spinach and corn seemed to grow the most in the 'mini greenhouses' we made out of plastic bags in the windows, but nearly all of the seeds showed signs of growth. Next step is to move the seedlings into small cups to live in the windowsills for the next month or so before we plant them outside in the ground.

I also had students fill out an 'evaluation', basically a series of simple questions about our classes to give us feedback: what they like, don't like, do they look forward to the class, what other kinds of things do they want to learn, so on and so on. I was pleased to see how many of them wrote about the seed project and gardens, they really seem pumped on doing the gardens this spring.

Checking out seed growth
3rd graders Marco and Kristina check out how much their seeds grew over winter break!

We also started our 'ecosystems' project. Students are learning about ecosystems - what they are, different types of ecosystems, etc. They will then connect this knowledge to their own gardens they will created this spring - investigating their ecosystem, trouble shooting problems, learning about how interrelated things in nature are - as well as what they have already learned about 'communities', and the similarities between ecosystems and communities, a connection they have already picked up on.

For our first 'ecosystem art project' they are making mobiles of an ecosystem they will choose and research - we are also learning about the work of Alexander Calder and other mobile artists. They seem pretty excited about it - more updates on it as we progress!

Ecosystem project

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

Journals

Students are back from break and back to work in their Living Histories class. A few examples of our Hamilton elementary kinder's journals today:

Journal work

Journals

Journal work