During Read Aloud, at the end of the day, the older students listened to William Pene du Bois’ fascinating book 21 Balloons. This book chronicles the adventures of Professor William Waterman Sherman in his specially designed hot air balloon. Professor Sherman lands on Krakatoa where he discovers an amazing settlement. Sadly, the volcanic explosion of Read More >>
Mesopotamia – The Cradle of Civilization
For the oldest students (grades 4 and above), our study of “Mesopotamia” – the land between two rivers – began with a discussion of “How do we know what we know?” How can we possibly know about a civilization that existed over 5,000 years ago? The children displayed a solid understanding of this concept listing Read More >>
Bugsocopter Science
To start the year, the oldest students were challenged to learn as much as they could about bugscopters – a t-shaped, paper, helicopter-like creation of Larry Schafer, formerly professor of Science Teaching at SU. After exploring the characteristics of the bugsocopters, by dropping them from on high, we discussed the need to limit variables when Read More >>
Motel of the Mysteries
The oldest students listened to a book at read aloud this fall called Motel of the Mysteries by David Macaulay. In this book, it is the year 4022 and all of the ancient country of Usa has been buried under many feet of junk mail from a catastrophe that occurred back in 1985. The students thoroughly enjoyed how Read More >>
13 Colonies
After studying the early explorers to the New World we turned our attention to the people who decided to settle in the New World – the early colonists. Each student was assigned one of the 13 colonies to research the answers to a number of questions. First they had to learn where Read More >>
Probability
For six weeks in September and October students in grades 4 to 7 were part of a class learning about probability. We started the unit by having a mystery bag in which there were ten cubes. Students had to pull out one cube at a time and then put the cube back; they did this Read More >>
Book Club: Tuck Everlasting
Many of the older students have been reading the book Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt. Each time the book club met the students were given a set of questions on a bookmark that went with the next section of reading. Students were challenged to look beyond the text and search for answers to questions. Lively Read More >>
Writing Workshop: Living Forever
The fourth through eighth graders have been working on a writing piece based off the novel Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt. In the story the main character is faced with a challenge to drink from a spring that could make her live forever. Students were asked to choose whether or not they would want to Read More >>
Graphing
Students in the intermediate grades explored the many ways you can display data. The first information or data we considered was a list of our birthdays. How could we display this information so it would be easier to read and compare? Bar Graphs were the answer. Our graphs displayed the months of the year and Read More >>
From Europe to the New World
For the older student, our early American History unit began in September with a study of the early explorers to the New World. The students were divided into four groups (countries): Spain, France, England and Holland. Each group is responsible for researching and presenting information on an explorer from their country. At school we have Read More >>