Happy new year and welcome back to school! It is wonderful to see everyone again after the winter break. The children were eager to reconnect with their classmates and get back to work in the classroom. The room was buzzing all week as the children rediscovered favorite activities and explored new materials that were added to the classroom. This week brought us to the end of our IB unit study of light which I describe below. The next few weeks, we will spend time studying the concept of stories and storytelling. This is a topic we touch upon daily throughout the year but this time will give us an opportunity to delve into the subject and structure of stories in more depth. The children will spend time dictating and revising stories as well as illustrating and dramatizing the stories. We will complete several author studies of our favorite authors.
The Conclusion of our Study of Light:
We spent much of this week revisiting our study of light and taking stock of what the children learned over the course of our exploration of light. I once again read to the children the list they created during the first days of our study. It was a list about what they already knew about light. Next, I asked them what they have learned about light through the books we've read, the experiments we've undertaken and observed, the questions we've asked and answered, and the light explorations they participated in in the studio. It was unanimous that the most exciting thing the children learned was that seeds and beans can not only grow in the dark but they grow faster in the dark! The children also learned that plants that grow in the light are darker in color than plants that grow in the dark. They shared what they learned about shadows and reflections. One child commented, "The moon shines bright in the night but only because of the sun. Sometimes the moon still shines when it's sunny."
In small groups, I encouraged the children to draw a picture that represented one fact they learned about light during our study. The children worked hard to express themselves through words and pictures.
Back to Work, Back to Play:
Dictating and Illustrating Stories:
The children were delighted to get to work writing stories. Many children asked to write a series of stories! They were all bubbling with excitement during our morning meeting when they shared the subject they wanted to write their stories about. Here are a few of their proposed themes:
- A dog that breathes fire
- A pirate ghost
- A bee taking a butterfly home
- An A train saying 'hello' to a B train
- A flower
- A giant water scorpion