Ms. Hartshorn’s Classroom News

January 17, 2008

Dear Families,

Hope you enjoyed the photos I sent you last Friday of some of the science work we’ve been doing. There was also a great picture of an elaborate "carpet" several children made as they worked cooperatively with the polydrons—a snap-together type of building tool. They are very proud of this and wanted me to take a photo and email it to all of you.

What happens when we combine blue water with clear water? What happens when clear mineral oil and blue water are combined? What do you think will happen when we combine vegetable oil and cider vinegar? Can you use what you’ve learned from the mineral oil and water lessons to predict what will happen with the vegetable oil and cider vinegar? How do these liquids react when combined? Can you think back to our raindrop and oil drop experiments to find a way to describe why this is happening? Draw what you see and describe what you did with the liquids and what happened? Were there any changes?

These are just some of the questions we’ve been working on with our study of liquids. Children are beginning to use science language when explaining their work to each other—fluid, flow, thick, dense, separate, combine, etc. I’m sure your child will tell you about the "Ocean in a Bottle" experiment we did with clear mineral oil and blue water. We also made our very own "Secret Salad Dressings," using a variety of spices, such as salt, pepper, rosemary, sage, and oregano combined with vegetable oil and cider vinegar. It was great fun trying our creations with carrots and cucumbers! Some comments included: "That’s very good, but I think it needs a bit more salt." "My dressing tastes a bit like Caesar dressing—I like that a lot." "I can really taste the spices in mine." "Maybe you should add more pinches of the spices." "Did you ‘grind’ the pinches in between your fingers so you can taste it better?" "Mmmm! Can we have more carrots and cucumbers to dip in our salad dressing?"

We’ve spent time this week discussing Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We’ve read a book titled Martin’s Big Words, which really had "little" words like LOVE, FREEDOM, and NO. These words are BIG IDEAS that help us understand the work and message of Dr. Luther King, Jr. Our school assembly on Wednesday this week helped us see more of Dr. King’s work and how many people, black and white, worked together to help create a more equal and free world. As one child in our classroom said, "You mean it’s really like ‘treat people the way you want to be treated, no matter what they look like or what they think?" Yup!

Since we’ve been back from holiday break, we’ve been working on a new type of expository writing: Response to Text. We’ve used several different story books to help us create focus statements about personal connection to a story concept, identifying characteristics of certain characters, and the change some of them make during the story or narrative. Some of the books we’ve used include Ivy and Bean, The Hodag (one of this year’s Red Clover books), and Max’s Words (another Red Clover book. Some of the focus statements we’ve developed include: Just like Ivy and Bean, ______________ and I are very good friends, Ole Swenson and the other lumberjacks used their cleverness to outsmart the animal catchers, Max was able to do many things with his words, Ivy and Bean became very good friends, and At first Benjamin and Karl thought Max’s word collection was a silly idea, but eventually, they thought it was a very good collection.

Once these focus statements were created, each child wrote at least three supporting details that reflected the focus statement and proved it to be true. I am impressed at how well all of the children are able to come up with supporting details that are found in the text of the story. We are now working on how to write a conclusion statement that restates the focus statement using different words that mean the same or about the same.

Older children are beginning to write their own background/context introductions to their responses. They had had this instruction last year, and are ready to become more independent in their pieces. We will review using "hooks" at the beginning of an introduction to get the reader "hooked" or interested in reading further. If you remember, this format for writing is very similar to the design we used for report writing earlier in the year.

This afternoon we will be having two visiting students from Harwood join us for a project called RED—Reading to End Discrimination. They will share stories about MLK, Jr. and discrimination followed by discussion about our part in creating a more peaceful, fair, and just world.

Reminder: We will be skiing or snowshoeing tomorrow as far as I know, so please have your child come dressed appropriately for this outside experience. Thanks!

Enjoy the new snow!

Brenda