Week 11

This week I subbed one afternoon, on Friday. One thing to note was that this Thursday I taught a science lesson for the first time. We are learning about 3-D shapes in math and working on a Force and Motion science unit. I decided to combine the two and talk about what shapes roll versus what shapes slide. So we set up a table to be our ramp. I made a chart to record the predictions and results of this experiment. I held up a shape and asked "Who thinks it will roll? Who thinks it will slide?" These were the results we got (On the right):

This activity led to a lot of questions by the children. What if we changed the orientation of the cylinder? What if we changed the ramp's incline? What if the ramp was flat?! (They were surprised to see shapes just sit still on the table when it was flat). The cone did some funky things.

Because of our math and science units, I also got to change around our classroom environment to encourage some natural child-led investigations. I created a "Shape shack" which is an area under our loft in the classroom that holds a light table, pattern blocks, wooden blocks, unifix cubes, and books about shapes. After our science experiment, I also set up some ramps with cars, marbles, and other shapes that the children could work with. Here were the results:

Another fun activity we did this week was on Monday. The children have been working on persuasive opinion pieces. We started this out by having them answer questions like, "Would you rather be able to fly or be invisible and why? Then they would have to write their answers out. Later, it turned into writing letters to someone to try and get them to do something for you. Writing to mom to give you a later bed time or to let you have different snack choices, etc. This week, I came across a book that fit perfectly into this kind of writing. "Duck! Rabbit!" by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld. This book revolves around a picture that could either be a duck or a rabbit. There are two narrators and they fight over what they see and why.

Wonderful book! After I read it aloud, I had the children write what they saw and how they knew! Then they could draw a picture. One of the keys is to hide the title before you show them the book and before reading it to ask what they actually see. I got bunny, duck, dog, and fish! The kids thoroughly enjoyed it and some who were not usually interested in writing, were enthusiastically writing independently!

Lot's of fun. Next two weeks are solo weeks!!