Africa. We are enjoying our exploration of Africa and its habitats. We found out that there are six different types of habitats and students are now able to identify one of the most important features of each habitat and how to identify it. For example, Woodland “has a lot of wood” because of its name, so it has many trees, and on the Rainforest rains a lot and it has a lot of vegetation because of it. We drew, color, and painted each habitat and chose our favorite. (Ask your child what their favorite habitat is and why). 

We are having fun learning fun facts about African animals, like what Spoonbill is and the meaning of its name, why Zebras have stripes, or is the Lion the king of the Jungle.

I gave them a STEM challenge: Create a doorway tall enough for a Giraffe. Well, not a real giraffe, of course, but a toy giraffe. Once we made it clear and identified what a doorway should look like, I told them about the only condition: they had to use different materials. They could mix materials but could not choose the same material as somebody else, so each of them had to figure out what material they could use. Some chose wood blocks, wood cubes, legos, magnatiles, gears, magnets, unifix cubes, and even kitchen bowls. Once they tried and felt that their idea was not working as they had expected, they could choose to switch the material for something else. It was a real test for some, and some students are still working on their ideas through trial and error.

Zebra pattern. This week we painted without using a brush. Students had to figure out how to use a golf ball and paint a Zebra pattern on paper without touching the golf ball. It was easy for those who had previously done it; it took a minute for the others who were doing it for the first time. They all enjoyed the whole process and wanted to do it again with different colors. We wondered if we could create other animal patterns using the same technique. 

Shape Talks. I asked students to tell me how to draw a triangle; it wouldn’t be difficult since they already know what triangles are. At first, they said: “Just draw three lines, triangles have three lines,” so I did. When I drew three parallel lines, they tried to explain how I had to draw them. They struggled to find the words to explain their ideas; some even tried drawing a triangle in the air. I was getting closer to drawing a triangle; however, they realized that they had to be more specific with each step they described (we did a little coding there). Each student had his own struggle to explain it clearly to me, and they were trying hard: “The lines have to be crossed!”, “No, they have to touch!” “You have to connect them!” As I finally made the three lines connecting, they realized I had made an “upside-down” shape. Most students were convinced that it was not a triangle just yet. Then I asked them: What makes a triangle a triangle? They answered almost in unison: three sides!, As I pointed at each side of my upside-down shape, they thought for a minute. “You have to have three points!”, while pointing at the vertices. So I counted them. They were still not fully convinced. Finally, one student said, “It is a triangle, but it’s upside down!”. The next day, students found a bunch of 2D shapes of different colors on the table. How many triangles do you see? Answers varied: “all of them are triangles!”, “I see 5”, “There are 15”. “No, there are 11”. “I see 9”. They noticed that they were all giving different answers, so we wondered why. Then I asked them to choose two shapes that were triangles, so they did. I then asked them to remind me what makes a triangle a triangle. Do triangles have more than three sides? Can they have curved sides? Can they have incomplete sides? With that in mind, we made a list of all the attributes of a triangle: 1. They have three sides. 2. They have three “pointy sides” (vertices). 3. No curved sides. 4. Only straight sides. 5. Complete sides. I then asked them to look at the shapes that they had chosen, and we checked if they had ALL of the attributes we had listed. We went through a process of elimination, and we counted the shapes that we had left. We counted and we all agreed that only 10 of the shapes were triangles. We then looked at pictures of various objects like a pizza slice, a Christmas tree, a cloth hanger, a swiss cheese slice, and a yield sign. We analyzed them one by one and concluded that none of them were triangles, even if they looked like it at first sight. The next day, I asked them to look around the room and see if they could find things to make a triangle, this time, they were more confident of their findings and had a clearer idea of what they needed to make a triangle. 

100. We missed our “100 days of school Day” together on-site, but that did not stop us from celebrating one week later. From estimating how far 100 steps would take us to making collections of 100 things, we are strengthening our number sense and count understanding with our work. 

Groundhog day. On Tuesday February 2nd., we were able to check our predictions outside with the help of the groundhog that we had made out of paper. We were excited to see that while the sun was out earlier, it had become very cloudy by the time we went out to recess. Students screamed out of excitement when they couldn’t see the shadow of their groundhogs (“yay! I like spring!”). We then watched a short video of the real Groundhog from Pennsylvania and found out that he did see his shadow, which means six more weeks of winter. (booo!) 

Symmetry. We began talking about symmetry and what it means: one shape that becomes exactly like another when you move it in some way: flip it, turn it or slide it. While we were talking about shapes, we noticed that the Hexagon shape is symmetrical. When I asked them to find a hexagon around the classroom, they had a hard time finding one, so I asked them if they could make one instead. They looked for pieces around the classroom and made them with material that we have around. Some used six Magna tiles triangles, others used popsicle sticks, and others used other types of plastic sticks. Some tried using pipe cleaners but realized they could get curvy and they were hard to straighten out.

Finally, we painted symmetrical hearts using tempera paint and pipettes; they turned out very colorful.  

After explaining Asymmetry, I asked students if they thought their faces were symmetrical or asymmetrical. Since we didn’t know, I took everybody’s picture and printed their faces. We divided the face in half and using a mirror we watched our faces turn symmetrical on each side of their face. We concluded that our faces are definitely Asymmetrical, and we prefer our asymmetrical faces over the Symmetrical ones. The results were hilarious and we had a good laugh. 

I like myself. After reading the book “I like myself” by Karen Beaumont, we asked each other what we like the most about ourselves. It made us think how important it is to appreciate everything about ourselves, inside and out. Each student dictated in their journal what they liked the most about themselves and why. Answers varied from Bones, Arms, Hands, Legs and Brain. 

Kindness.  We found a book titled: “Todos con Vanesa” (I walk with Vanessa) by Kerascoet. This particular book did not have a written story, and it comes only with illustrations. After taking a quick look at the book’s pages, we came up with the story and each student narrated the pages. I encouraged them to observe everything in the pages, including the characters’ faces and expressions. This book explores the feelings of anger and helplessness that arise when seeing a classmate being bullied and how a simple act of kindness made all the difference to a whole community. (Ask your child about the story and how it made them feel). 

Picasso. We keep talking about Picasso, and this week we learned that Picasso created art influenced by African Masks. We looked at some African masks pictures and some of Picasso’s paintings next to each other and we compared the eyes, noses, mouths and even the sizes and positions where each of them were located. We all agreed they were very similar. We then created our masks using oil pastels and watercolors. 

During our lunchtime, I was shocked when students asked to listen to the “drum music” we were listening to when painting our African masks. I explained that it was traditional African music. We wondered what type of instruments they used besides the drums, so we looked it up and found out that in that particular song, they used a Balafon, a kind of xylophone, and a Shekere, a type of maraca that had shells on the outside. We closed our eyes and pretended we played drums using our bodies; some even got containers upside down and used them as real drums. So much fun! They kept asking to listen to African Music during our free exploration and they loved grabbing their masks to dance around at the tune of the music. We may even make our African instruments in the future.