Jon and his Hojalata self portrait…
Where in the World?!
This week we headed further south. We could see on our big wall map that we were in Equator-territory, once we made it to the continent of South America. All first year Alphas take a trip around the Sun when we learn about patterns and cycles like the seasons – but we reviewed it in order to see what happens to the seasons in the Southern hemisphere…
Have Dolly, Will Orbit…Here we find our Earth (played by Max) heading into Spring, in the Northern Hemisphere, and Fall in the Southern. No matter how close or far the Sun was from the North or South Poles, the equator (where Max’s arms are), stayed about the same distance. No wonder the seasons don’t change much at all at the equator…
We LOVED having our Beta Buddy, Gabriel, come and share his knowledge of Brazil with us! Gabe’s mama grew up in Brazil and his grandparents still live there — so they get to go there to visit!
Gabe explains that each denomination of Brazilian paper (plastic) money has a special animal on the back of the bill, to show how much they care about protecting the animals there.
Adeline helps Ms. Kim teach everybody a fun hand-clapping game known as “Chocolate!”
Alphas had so much fun dancing (and playing) some cool samba beats!
We learned that South America isn’t all rainforests and tropical beaches – it is also home to the longest mountain range in the world: The Andes! On this western side of the continent are the remains of Incan cities! Some of the ruins can only be reached on foot, high up in the mountains. Alphas learned that South America faced the same colonization as North America and the indigenous people were hurt tremendously when they moved in either by the way they were treated or by the germs they brought over. Eventually all but a few islands and French Guiana became sovereign nations. The road to freedom was hard and people had their own ways of showing their loyalty and sense of identity to their home and people. One way they did this was with the patterns in the clothes. You could tell a lot about a person from the colors, shapes, and even the angle they might wear something!
Montera hats, worn by Peruvian women, gave out a lot of information about the wearer…they also have a hole in the center that you can put flowers in on special occasions!
Bowler hats were worn by men in Europe, but in Bolivia, it is the women who wear them!
…and a shaman hat!
Gabe told us a little about Carnival – one of the largest celebrations in the world. It’s a time, not only to celebrate resilience, but a reminder to put our differences aside and recognize how we all bring something unique and wonderful to the world. To celebrate South America, we made some Carnival masks and Yellow and Sky Blue tables made Pan de Queijo!
Thumbs up on the Pan de Queijo – except for one baker, who just…doesn’t like cheese. Good luck in Europe, my friend… 🙂
Recipe for Brazilian Cheese Bread (Pao de Queijo)
Math
Ms. Emma’s Math Wizards…
Learned how to tell time! We used a mix of analog and digital devices to teach us the ancient ways of clocks. First, we went back in time to understand how/why humans keep track of time in the first place.
Alphas know that analog clocks are less relevant now than ever, but they do a wonderful job at providing a visual representation of time and help us understand fractions.
Time rotations! Clock stamps were definitely the highlight…
Time word problems…
We also learned how to tell time using written words! What does half past 2 mean?
They also learned how to solve sudoku puzzles and had so much fun!
Ms. Kim’s Mathletes…
Who-ee! We pretty much finished making our 99 chart! This week we really got to know the columns — instead of the “ones’digits” changing with each move, the “TENS’ digits” change! It was an Alpha mind blowing situation – but we worked through it! Yes, Alphas really worked through what happens when we add ten to a two digit number! We learned to play “2-Digit War” pretty peacefully, and we are excited to use ten bars and unit cubes to make designs.
ELA
Ms.Kim’s group…
A lone wolf showed up!
We started learning about “r-controlled” words this week, with the “ar” words – it sounds just like old fashioned pirates (here’s a link to a goofy the Alphas liked).
We left the world of folktales and moved into a new genre: fantasy! Chris Van Allsburg doesn’t always write in this genre, but we find that when he does, not many people can beat his knack for the uncanny! The Alphas were very impressed with his illustrations too. Earlier this year, we read Two Bad Ants, this time around we read stories that began in a fairly realistic way. Alphas were challenged to spot the moment they knew they’d crossed into fantasy territory…
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The Mysteries of Harris Burdick is a collection of strange captioned illustrations that were given to a publisher with the promise the author illustrator, Harris Burdick, would return with the completed stories – but he was never seen again. Mr. Allsburg doesn’t know much about them either, except that children all over the world seem to enjoy making up their own stories about the fascinating images…
Ms. Emma’s group
Loved sharing their memory of the best day ever!…
Writing in our journals, would you rather take a rocketship to outer space or a submarine to the deep ocean?
Writing in our final drafts of our memory booklets! Thank goodness for all the hard work on our first drafts at home…
Tackled prefixes! This week we looked at un-, mis-, and pre-. As always the students came up with wonderful word lists of each, and we played BUMP!
Spelling check ins!
In Other News…
A boy and his grubs…
Art imitates life…
Sweet recess moments..
Lovely domino people Ezra..
