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Barn Owls
Barn Owls
Learning About the Lenape People
Learning About the Lenape People
With Native American Heritage Month just around the corner, the Barn Owls have been diving deep into the history of the native Lenape people. We completed the Question Formulation Technique of generating diverse questions, prioritizing them, flipping closed ended questions into open ended questions, and then refining them further to reflect what we want to learn. Some of their favorite final questions were: How did they make their houses waterproof? How did they get their food? What did they make their tools out of? What did they do all day? The Barn Owls then used printed images of different scenes and artifacts of the Lenape people to try to infer the answers to their questions. From this point, they will be invited to participate in online research alongside a teacher to confirm and elaborate upon their answers with the end goal of creating a class magazine: “Big Questions: Life of the Lenape.”
TIME for some fun!
This week, the Barn Owls decided to take our lessons on telling time and make it more kinesthetic. We actually BECAME the hands of a giant clock! First, we layed out a big, long rope in the shape of a circle on the blacktop. From there, kiddos used chalk to write in the numbers for the four quarters of the clock. Once the clock was laid out, the fun began! Teachers called out directions such as, “clockwise”-students had to walk around the circle in a clockwise direction, “counterclockwise”-students turned around and walked in the circle gcounterclockwise, “quarter past”, “half past”, “quarter of” and “an hour”-students had to make their way over to the correct location for each quarter. Once they got the hang of that, we added onto the challenge. When a direction was given, Barn Owls had to get to the correct location and form a line, representing the hand of the clock, placing their hands on the person’s shoulders in front of them. We would then call out the next direction and while staying in that line, they had to work together to shuffle their feet together to move their line (clock hand) to the next given time, all the while staying in that straight line as the clock hand. This was great practice for teamwork as they not only had to keep their line formed, they also had to go at a pace that worked for everyone and they had to decide which place on the clock they had to get to. (We also threw in some silly commands such as “time warp”, “time freeze” and “time quake”. Ask your kiddos about those fun movements!) This was a great activity to get our bodies moving and to bring to life our understanding of learning to tell time!
Phonics is FUN!
Phonics is FUN!
We have officially begun our new phonics program! The Barn Owls were introduced to our new program called “Phonics, Reading and Me”. Kiddos are broken into three groups and work with one of the Carriage House teachers within their small groups three times a week. Each session includes word work, reading, comprehension and a writing component. This program allows for kiddos to work within their group, but to then also branch off and work at their own pace. Though still new, the Barn Owls are LOVING the program and have since nicknamed phonics as FUN-ics! We love their enthusiasm and are just as excited about this program as they are!
Elder Guardians
Close Reading & Phonics
An important part of upper-elementary reading is the shift from learning to read to reading to learn. The Elder Guardians are practicing close reading texts related to our area of inquiry. Close reading is the process of reading an article or story multiple times, each time for a different purpose. Students first read to understand the genre of the text and identify any unfamiliar words. Then they annotate the text in order to prepare for a class discussion or written response.
While one group is working in a reading group, the other is in the library. This gives students the opportunity to learn about sourcing information, practice finding just-right texts, and read independently.
This week we read an article about emotions. Students discussed how scientists have found that the emotions we feel may be impacted by the language/s we grow up learning. During their student-led discussion, they highlighted parts of the article that they found interesting and important and asked each other questions about what they didn’t understand.
While we’re focusing on reading comprehension, written responses and discussing texts in one part of our reading curriculum, we’re also continuing to focus on phonics. Groups meet three times a week to read texts connected to phonics skills such as long vowels, compound words, and open and
closed syllables. Each session includes word work, fluency work, comprehension, and writing.
Math Groups
Students are continuing to meet in Number Talk groups every day and longer math groups twice a week. Both groups are working on multi-step story situations. These require students to figure out what the question is asking and the steps they need to take to come up with a solution. We’re also working on showing our thinking so that someone else can follow our process and so that we can check our work. One group is focused on situations that require multiplication and division to solve and the other is working on with addition and subtraction. Here’s an example!
Me Museum
Me Museum
We’re beginning to wrap up our inquiry around identity. During choice time, students have been working on various activities tied to who they are. We are now transitioning to completing longer projects that will be the basis for our “Me Museum” exhibition (Opening Date: To be Announced!) Students have explored communities they are a part of, written about an important tradition in their lives, and made to-scale replicas of their bodies. More information about their incredible creations to come!
Scaling Ourselves
Scaling Ourselves
As part of our Me Museum, each elder guardian is creating a version of themselves that is 1/4 their actual size. We started by helping each other measure the parts of our body using whole inches. Now we are working to scale each measurement down to 1/4 its length. We were able to use blocks to help us see the relationships between fractions and whole numbers as we worked together to solve the problem: What is 1/4 of 3 inches.
Community and Identity
We’re continuing to work on integrating aspects of a respectful and thriving community into our daily routines. On Friday morning, we start our day with a Community Circle, an important part of restorative practices. We share stories about who we are, what’s important to us, and times we’ve experienced different things. Community Circles are important because they allow students to practice listening to understand and build connections with the people in their community. They also follow the same protocols as circles for repairing harm, making them an important practice space for these more difficult conversations. Students are beginning to own the routines of community circle, bringing in the talking piece, giving feedback on how we uphold our norms, and creating rituals for this special time together.
We’re also practicing gratitude by meeting in Closing Circle each day and writing “shout outs” for other people in our community that uphold our community values. This allows for us to pay attention to the ways we’re positively impacting the community and celebrate those moments together.
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