This past summer I b ecame a "Youtuber" !! I am absolutely fascinated by caterpillars, butterflies and moths. These are all called lepidoptera. When the giant swallowtail butterfly swooped into our yard I was hooping and hollering! I witnessed it laying eggs. I took in some of the eggs to observe as the caterpillar hatched and moved through the cycle into a butterfly. The giant swallowtail butterfly was looking for wafer ash. This is a small tree that people don't commonly grow. I really hope my video inspires people to buy wafer ash so that we have more "giants" in our world. Please watch and enjoy! Subscribe to my channel!
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This view is looking south at the forested area adjacent to our school. WOW! The yellow flower is called "roundleaf golden ragwort." A splash of yellow in the shaded woodland. Also growing here are black eyed susan, which will also be a burst of yellow in July & August. Last fall we deposited the flower heads & stems of black eyed susan and poof! Lots are emerging.
Both of these plants can be invasive, meaning they will grow where you don't want them. For now, they are nicely wild in our woods and appreciated by many. Come take a walk on the wild YELLOW side! What better way is there to get kids' attention than by making candy? In this case it was caramel brittle. We took only 1 1/2 cups of granulated sugar and melted it in a copper pot. This is a special pot I hand carried home from France at the age of 19. Copper conducts heat so evenly. It holds heat so there are no fluctuations (high heat, low heat). If you do this at home you could use an iron skillet, which has similar characteristics as copper.
The solid transforms into a liquid. It's thick but still a very hot liquid. Then the burnt sugar cools and becomes brittle. If we pour it over peanuts it's peanut brittle! This demonstration will be viewed in Peardeck in order to review science concepts. Concepts include properties of matter, phase change and chemical & physical change. I hope you will take time to view this slide show of an absolutely marvelous science project. It was assigned by my Colleague, Emily Westerling, just this past month to coincide with the holiday season. She developed criteria for the three grade levels in her class: 4th: Earth's Landforms, 5th Celestial Bodies, 6th Endangered Sea Life. And then she tied in a simple literacy piece with the explanatory paragraph and the construction process paragraph. They are displayed nicely in the hall for all to see. Out of more than 60 students only 4 did not complete one. That's high motivation for a homework project! She credits Hyde Park Teacher Denielle Endres for the idea. Love it Emily!! holiday
We have a micro-forest that our wonderful volunteer, Bill Berger, has cleared much honeysuckle. Volunteers have laid a path and now our students enjoy a short walk under a developing canopy. The first picture is turkey tail - white and orange. Also notice smaller dabs of an orange jello-like fungus. I don't know the names of these winter marvels. 4th grader Maman found the mulch in the path exploding with mushrooms. She was thrilled! We will check back and possibly document it's progress as a decomposer. A delightful little village of mushrooms! No, no....we don't even think about eating them.
Kids can study and have fun at the same time. December's science homework was to create a game or develop a comic strip. The game required students to design a game board using the topic of their science studies. 5th grade was reasons for the seasons and 6th was energy. They also had to write directions and design any tokens. I provided the task cards and game board templates. I did not want kids stripping their home game boards of dice so I assured them we have plenty at school. Pictured here are a selection of games. In the future I would like to give guidance on enhancing with graphics. I could also provide some clip art. We have had two game playing sessions in class. I organized them (lots of parts need bags and frog clips) and have a special shelf for them. We look forward to future game playing.....and hope for some learning too! This annual event is a showcase of the arts within CPS. For two years now it has been down at the Aronoff Center. Dance, music and fine arts are displayed from all schools in the city. Our art teacher, Suzanne Nall, curates and coordinates the culminating "piece" . Here is the "Glow Show" with each school contributing a glow ball with many suspended at various levels. Suzanne has been collecting black lights over time to construct this fluorescent wild world.
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Judy GananceWhat is important in my life? Health, family, community, teaching & learning, forest, lepidoptera, photography, knitting, cooking & technology. It is a great pleasure to explore science and sensible problem solving with our children of Parker Woods Montessori. Archives
August 2019
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