PUMPKIN DAY!!!

Today was Pumpkin Day!!! A completely, made up on the spot, catchy way to gain interest this morning when the kids came in to read the board! The best part was when we were reading the message, a little guy raised his hand and was very concerned. He said, "Mrs. Cervantes, my family doesn't celebrate pumpkin day." He looked so worried because he didn't know what it was or what we were going to do, it was priceless!

What IS Pumpkin Day?

We read a book called How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? The kids LOVED that in the end of the book it was the smallest pumpkin that had the greatest amount of seeds. The first thing we did was have a jack-o'-lantern drawing contest. The entire class submitted a picture of a face for me to carve into our class pumpkin. The class voted on one final drawing.

As they went to library, I desperately tried to carve this pumpkin into a cat face with whiskers and eyelashes. FAIL. The kids were very gracious and told me it looked great! Thank goodness my husband always cleans mine up at home after I try to carve one each year!

Next, we decided to count seeds and group them by specific numbers. The kids each put their hands in the pumpkin to pull out a goopy hanful of seeds. Each table chose a different number to group the seeds. We had groups of 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, and 11! This made some very complex adding in the end.

Next, we counted how many groups we had of each number. The kids then guessed which table would have the most seeds. Then they had to add their seeds and write down the strategy they used to add. The table of 11's knew that each time they added a group of 11 they only needed to add 10 and then 1 more. The table of 2's simply counted by 2's!

Last we added all the numbers together!! It was in the 300's. We talked about adding the decade (tens place) to the large number before adding the ones.
EX/ 75+57=
70+50+5+7=
120+12=
120+10+2=
132
Common Core at it's finest!

We ended with an experiment. Place baking soda inside the pumpkin. Add vinegar and watch it bubble out of the pumpkin face!!! Thank you Levi for being the scientist:)

Leaf Creatures

Last week we read Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert and were inspired to make our own leaf creatures. We went out to collect interesting leaves and saved them in a baggie. Monday we made our creatures and the past several days the children have been working on narratives to go along with their creatures! They turned out really cute and they had fun making up stories!

Presenting.....Child Scholars!!!!

Yesterday we were able to present our brilliant ideas to Mrs. Sandy Willmore for our Swickard Woods project!

The kids formed groups based on their interest and presented what they would like to create and how it would work. Each design was created to help us find out what animals are in Swickard Woods.

Jim, Jack, Sarah, Monnishaa, Eli, Collin, and Henry designed food houses to attract the animals so we could watch them from a camera. Miss Sandy especially liked the water tubes and play areas for the animals! She told them to think about what types of food would they need and how the animals would eat it if some have beaks, some have tongues, some have sharp teeth... 

Jim, Yashas, Elijah, and Levi drew maps of Swickard Woods and designed special video cameras to record the animals. Miss Sandy really liked the cameras on zip lines!! She told them to think about two very specific spots to put cameras.

Sreshta, Kaitlyn, Lucy, and Samantha designed "animal callers" that would call animals over so we could study them. They had bear callers, fox callers, bird callers....Miss Sandy told them she does have an owl caller and maybe they could try that sometime!!!

Teddy and Levi designed safe animal traps to catch the animals but not cause any harm. Miss Sandy loved the idea that the traps could go under water!

Peyton, Allie, Addison, Kaitlyn, and Sreshta started research on some animals we already knew lived in Swickard Woods. They shared some interesting facts with Miss Sandy. Miss Sandy told them research was exactly what they should be doing to find out about animal habitats!

Emma, Avery, and Kiera created interview questions for Miss Sandy. We found out some really cool facts when she answered us! Did you know coyotes and foxes live in our woods?? Their favorite question was which animals are the most dangerous in SW? You will never guess what her answer was.....US!! People are the most dangerous, most animals are harmless if we stay out of their way.

Now that we have a start of which animals are in our woods, we can all start some research! I will also be planning very closely with Sandy to make some of these ideas really happen!! Aren't our kids so bright?!!

Swickard Woods Part 2

Dramatic Inquiry: When we pretend to be other people in another space
Today we used dramatic inquiry to expand upon our ideas from yesterday to find animals in Swickard Woods. We pretended to be guides that were building a new wetlands and we needed to create safe habitats for the animals. First we needed to decide which animals we were creating a habitat for and how to do so. We became experts in areas of choice such as

• Map makers- the children created maps of what the new habitats would look like and where we would put web cams to monitor animal activity. Elijah realized he would need an underwater webcam to watch the animals in the pond!
• Animal callers- the children designed a machine that would call specific animals  so we could study their characteristics. 
• Food House: Some children designed a house that would keep animal food in it with cameras to videotape which animals were coming in and out to eat.
• Safe Trap: Some of the children were very interested in creating an animal trap that would still be safe, yet allow us to capture an animal for a short period of time for studying. 
• Researchers:The girls decided to research animals that they thought would be found in a wetlands and learned about their habitats.
• Interviewers: A list of questions was created to ask the wetland specialists regarding animal behavior and characteristics. The girls came up with very specific questions to help them understand what types of animals we would be working with in our wetlands. Some examples were "How many animals are dangerous and how many are harmless?" "Which animals run fast and which run slow?" 

Sarah is designing a food house to attract animals.

Erik is designing a safe animal trap!

Kaitlyn is designing an animal caller that could call bears, frogs, birds, rabbits, and groundhogs.

 We still have a lot of work to go but these field guides sure are inspiring me!! Stay tuned....

Swickard Woods Inquiry Part 1

The BEST part of our days are spent inquiring about Swickard Woods and the animals. We have revised our guiding question to be "How can we find out what animals live in Swickard Woods?" We realized we needed to take a step back and first determine what we will be researching!! Yesterday we spent time brainstorming ideas that help us do just this...find animals!! Below are some great shots of the children working hard and their ideas.

Samantha, Henry, Jack, and Sarah using their notebooks to brainstorm.

Yashas wrote: We could have a lot of guides. Make a shovel holder.

Monnishaa wrote: Use magnifying glasses. Use shovels for the search. Use flashlights for the search.

Teddy said we could look for: scat, tracks, habitats, shredded skin.

Samantha wrote: We could go in Swickard Woods and go put cameras out so the cameras could...

We compiled all of our ideas to make this master list!

Check out the next post to see what happened today!!

Self Assessing Our Writing

This week we gathered together to review the writing skills we have been practicing to date. We created a rubric of what good writers should include in their narratives. 

Our rubric includes: 

• Choose one small moment to write about
• Write a beginning that states who, what, when, where
• Use transition words (first, next, after that...)
• Write an ending with a feeling
• Use spaces
• Use lowercase letters
• Use punctuation
• Use capital letters for names and the beginning of sentences

The children self assess with this rubric as they finish a narrative. Then I will meet with the children as they explain how they met each goal. They LOVE seeing themselves as authors!!

Planting in the wetlands

So I got a little behind on my posting...I have too many pictures to keep up with each day! Last week we walked over to the new wetlands and saw Miss Sandy Willmore (who took us on our nature walk) and met Mr. Bill Resch (he has been with the district probably longer than I have been alive and that is a compliment to him!). The children were able to pick plants and leave their marks in the ground! Thanks to Mr. Liebel for assisting and getting dirty with us!