My, how we’ve grown since August!
Theme: Where in the World?!
This week we headed to the great continent of Africa…
We learned where it is and what it’s made of- like DESERT! The Sahara is the world’s largest desert; almost all of the United States could fit inside it!
Africa has a tropical jungle in the Congo, and grassy plains (not unlike our grassy plains in Texas) called the savannah, it has big coasts, tall mountains and the world’s longest river: the Nile!
Alphas mapping out regions and biomes of Africa…
When we think of Africa, some of our first thoughts include the amazing creatures that inhabit these different biomes. Creatures like…
…lions, rhinos. Nile crocodiles, mosquitoes, hippos, elephants and Cape buffaloes!
All appear on lists of the top 10 most dangerous and deadly creatures in Africa!
We took a class poll to see which one they thought was the most deadly of all the creatures and the mosquito surprised several of us. It’s pretty wild to think that the tiniest among that group can do so much damage!
Alphas making books of the deadliest animals in Africa!
Alphas learned that Africa is considered to be the cradle of human beings. We learned that in a South African cave, archeologists have found fossils of our oldest ancestors!
Necklace made out of repurposed 78 records, Kenyan beads, cowrie shell belt, Senegalese woven hat… all from different places in Africa!
Speaking of records… in South Africa, back in the 1930’s a man named Solomon Linda wrote and recorded a song that traveled all the way over the Atlantic to the ears of Pete Seeger (we listen to Pete every time we play the record “Abiyoyo”)! He loved the song but had no idea what the African words were so he imitated them as best he could. He recorded it and called the song “Wimoweh.” People have loved it ever since. It’s one of the most-covered songs in the world, and generated over 15 million dollars! Solomon Linda didn’t collect any of that until a writer did some detective work and located where the song originated. He and others rallied to make things fair for Solomon Linda’s family. “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” is one of our favorite songs this quarter!
Here’s a link to their original recording by Solomon Linda, and a recording of it by Pete Seeger, and full circle, a version by Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the Mint Juleps that I promised Alphas I’d put in the newsletter because we ran out of time in class :)
Solomon Linda and the Evening Birds… Solomon is the tallest gentleman.
We LOVED learning about Africa from Jack’s dad! He shared some stories, slides and artifacts from Kenya!
Kenya is a diverse country on the Western side of the continent We loved learning how the animals in the Savannah are dependent upon each other – from food – with the birds on the backs of rhinos eating parasites – to protection from predators from the tall giraffes who can spot trouble in the tall grass better than anyone else!
Mr. Brian reported that it was hot standing right on the equator…EVEN in WINTER! Hey zebras, do the giraffes see any lions out there?!
Wood carvings, beaded necklace, and a lion-tooth gift from a Maasai prince are great great treasures from a fantastic journey to Africa!
Alphas learned that the Maasai people from Kenya use beads to show who they were in their village. Each color and shape hold special meanings.
Alphas making their own Maasai collars…
Next, we travelled west to the country of Ghana to learn that the Ashanti people expressed ideas and values through patterns and colors too- but through cloth! The Ashanti people are expert weavers and most famous for the amazing kente cloth they create.
We read this legend of how the Ashanti people learned how to weave Kente cloth.
We learned that in Ashanti villages, weaving is something men do. Fathers pass the knowledge down to their sons and children begin learning how to weave be the time they are about 7 years old! So Alphas tried their hand at weaving too!
Here is a link to our Kente Cloth Slides – the final slide has a video of a young boy weaving and wow, is FAST!
First we made patterns… then we weave!
Math
Ms. Emma’s Math Wizards…
Expanded their minds with logic games and puzzles galore!
We are at that point in the year when we get to spend time playing all sorts of fun games that force us to think critically and overcome challenging problems.
Ms. Kim’s Mathletes…
The end of the year is a great time to apply our knowledge by synthesizing some skills we’ve learned in isolation – like directionality and computing. Alphas were so into following clues in order to map coordinates. A lot of different skills go into this challenge and they had to be very detail oriented! They also enjoyed adding-trees. It gave us an opportunity to play with sums greater than ten – opening the door to talk about “friendly addends” which are addends that are mentally easy to add together. So when we have equations like 9+5, we can ask ourselves “Nine is close to ten, so what if we turned the nine into ten by borrowing 1 from the group of 5?” 10+4 is supe-easy for Alphas to add together…
It was all hands on deck for the mapping work so we didn’t get any photos of kids doing it but here’s an example of what they did…
ELA
Ms.Kim’s group…
Our new “r-controlled” vowel this week is the letter “e.” We learned that we can add “er” to LOTS of words. It led to a conversation about long and short vowel sounds. Alphas are becoming good encoders as they listen to discern long or short sounds to their “er” words. “Miner” has a long “I” sound because the “e” in “er” gives the vowel its name – but “batter” needs an extra “t” to protect it from the “e” in “er,” so that its vowel stays short!
Whelan, sorting real and made-up “er” words…
The name of the genre this week was “Science Fiction!” The International Space Station has a program called Stories from Space where astronauts are videoed reading space related picture books. We enjoyed listening to astronaut Serena Onan read a book about what it would be like if a kid went into space. Alphas thought even though kids can’t go into space by themselves, the story was kind of realistic. Fiction can be pretty realistic – but when we read The Smeds and The Smoos we got the idea that science fiction can encompass some fantastical proportions! Alphas learned that Science fiction can involve a lot of things that can’t or at least hadn’t happened during the time the story was written. It could involve laboratories and inventions, it could be set way off in the future – like Star Wars. We talked about turning a folktale or fairy tale into a science fiction story – the Alpha were very inspired!
On Thursday, we had another combo-day because we were missing another teacher…Most of us read, but a few of us decided to write! I can’t remember a quieter time in Alpha!
Ms. Emma’s group…
Shared the funniest memory ever…
Wrote a revised version of the story in their memory books…
Met two new word families…
And conquered a few spelling check ins…
In Other News…This was a week of absences and guests! We loved hearing Mr. Steve’s Deltas’ rockin’ Rock Cycle stories! Our Alphas were the best listeners ever! So proud of them as well as the Alpha Graduate Authors! Nice work Deltas – thanks for sharing!
A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our well-appreciated, nacho-loving friend! It’s been a while since we had an Alpha to celebrate and were so happy to break our b-day-drought with yours, Jon! And thanks for the ice-cream sandwiches…YUM!
Sick teachers call for combined groups…
Alphas are excellent at teaching each other how to play the math games they’ve learned
ELA group work…
Many cool show and tells…
