Tuesday, November 1st with 4th, 5th,and 3rd

What an exciting day! Ms. McGinley and Ms. Yancey's class had a very hands-on science/art project involving rocks and water and drawing and printmaking- Whew! We're starting to talk more about erosion, and first looked at a picture of the Grand Canyon to brainstorm what could have made it so deep. Interesting answers: (everybody thought my alien laser beam idea was silly) we heard earthquakes, tornadoes, rivers, rain, glaciers, and volcanoes. It was interesting to see the range of natural forces they understand to create change on the earth. Then we looked at how to make a contour map to understand how high or low the ground is. While some students finished stitching their river meanders, the rest took turns coming back to 6 stations. First we arranged rocks in plastic takeout containers, then drew outlines of the rocks on the plastic lid, poured in colored water, traced the new contour, poured in more water, traced, etc. Then we laid a damp paper over the drawing, rubbed the back and revealed the transferred contour map. Then students drew over their lines to make them more bold and colored in the spaces. We've glued them into our books ready to use as a pattern for our mountain sculptures.

I also managed to retake photos of their meander embroideries:

In Ms. Gelfand's 5th grade we did the same stencil/poster lesson as on Monday's class with Ms Albert, which went equally as well. When I arrived the students were sharing their sun/energy/time reflections they had prepared to incorporate into their project. With the smartboard available I was also able to share with them the Allen McCollum unique shapes image to help stress the "SIMPLE" image idea. Here are some results:

 I love all their spiky suns.

In Ms. Didonato's 3rd grade we decided to switch activities based on the process we experienced in Ms O'Donnell's class previously. Instead of starting with the complicated pattern coin stamping image and huge coin tally, we've started with the "war" card deck stamping and easy small change tally. We managed to get everybody through the printing process, but lacked time for tallying values. Ms. Didonato's class is really hurting from the difference in time- we're a whole lesson behind the other class now. I wonder if perhaps we should switch with Ms. O'Donnell's class next week and give her class a morning session on Monday- especially since they'll miss Tuesday for election day. Here's what they did: