the week before winter vacation!

and there was an early release for snow AND a half day. that cut our lesson load a bit!

MONDAY
a planning day...not very eventful. a couple of us walked around the pond looking for animal tracks. here's a list of what we saw:

- lots of squirrel tracks (they go EVERYWHERE)
- cute mice tracks
- what we later identified as shrew
- either canine (dog) or beaver...

in the evening, a few of us went to a farmer's gathering in north adams to mill around and help take down tables at the end. i had some really great food and met some interesting people : ) usually a good way to end the day.

TUESDAY
our only full day at school. our lesson with 6th grade went really well. we had them looking at their ecological footprints, starting with just one aspect (food, clothing, transportation). it was interesting to see the wide variety of thought processes as well as the depth of understanding about how we live our lives and the products we use to keep our lifestyles consistent.

after that lesson, we got ready for our fun with 4th grade. we did a bunch of water activities to illustrate dissolving, surface tension, ice expansion, and evaporation. gooooood times! caleb and i had lunch and then recess duty (see previous blog entry for recess details).

our next stop was 5th grade. it was our best lesson yet! we reviewed adaptations and let them create an original bird using adaptations. they were really excited and engaged throughout the lesson.

i spent the afternoon hanging out with drama club filling in for some of the girls who were absent.

: )




WEDNESDAY
early release for snow! waaahoo! we had fun learning about snowflakes in preschool. i read a story. they looked at snowflakes outside with magnifying glasses. they came back inside and cut out snowflakes from coffee filters and painted them with water colors. it was awesome.

then we had our lesson with kindergarten. they were actually really well behaved for it being an exciting day. they seemed kind of oblivious to the snow...but that made our lesson go well : )

the afternoon was full of making bee puppets and an interactive flower model (as well as shoveling and snow games).

THURSDAY
another early release day, except it was on the calendar. we enjoyed a morning meeting with 3rd grade. they are such a great class : ) we did a miming activity. it was fun.

then came perhaps the highlight of my entire teaching experience. our amazing bee puppet show. the puppets came out beautifully. i made a queen bee, two drones (with baseball caps on), and two worker bees. we also had a larvae and a hexagon to illustrate the shape of honeycombs. the play was hilarious thanks to caleb's comedic playwrighting skills. i loved it. i want to do more puppet shows.

we got out early...and then i spent the afternoon making animal track stamps. i love an excuse to do artsy craftsy things.

FRIDAY
we had 3rd graders and 5th graders form buckland shelburne elementary come to our site. i worked with the 3rd graders teaching about plants and animals. it went really well : ) we did some story telling, animal tracking activities, and went on a nature hike! hoooooray!

: )