I am so enjoying the time I spend with Division 6. They are a delightful bunch! We've been busy doing all kinds of learning, and I thought it was well and truly time to share.
One of the things I noticed about the class when I was first getting to know them was that there was a strong gender divide. By and large, the girls sat on one side when we came to the carpet, the boys on the other. The girls chose to work with girls and boys with boys. They were uncomfortable if ever they had to work with someone of the opposite gender. I was concerned and spoke with the children, but it is they who taught me the most effective way to overcome this discomfort.
As you probably know, we go outside almost every day for our gym time. We do this because free play is incredibly valuable time for children to learn how to play with others, problem solve, help and care about each other, and to build community. Research also shows that children who are good at play and are given time to play are much more likely to be successful in school. TED talk video on the value of play
During our play time over the last few days, the children have invented a new game. They slide down the double slide sitting across it and sliding into the children at the bottom so that a row of up to eleven children can all be on the slide at once, lined up and waiting for the next child. Not only are their grins ear to ear, but they forget that they might be bumped up against a boy or a girl. Gender no longer matters. I cannot imagine a better outcome for our little community as we return to work and find that we no longer see boy or girl first, but friend and playmate.
During the last month, we have been busy investigating a magnified world. As I wrote about in an earlier post, we are using jeweler's loupes and a program called, "The Private Eye." We started by looking at our hands, but it didn't take long before we were going out to find invertebrates to bring back into the classroom and examine up close. The thinking the children are doing is truly impressive and their use of imagery in their writing will make parents very proud. We have also watched some episodes of a David Attenborough documentary titled "Micro Monsters." This documentary follows arthropods (invertebrates with an exoskeleton such as insects) in wonderful HD quality cinema and looks at their often surprising behaviour. The episodes are 22 minutes long and the children are completely engrossed while watching. They even applaud at the end of each episode. Last week, the children did presentations about their invertebrates. Some drew with chalk, some drew on paper, some wrote, and some did a combination. Their task was to talk about what amazed them in investigating their invertebrate.
We also read a book last week about microbes. The children were so excited that I thought this would make a good jumping off point for a project. Did you know that there are more microbes in your stomach than people on Earth? What an amazing fact! I would like to invite parents to help in our project. As you probably know many wonderful foods are made with the use of microbes. My list includes yogurt, kefir, sourdough bread, and yeast bread. I would like to have the students work in groups to make some fermented food that would be safe to make in a school setting. If you know of a fermented food that would be interesting to try making at school, please let me know. I would also love to have parent help in working with groups to make some of these foods.
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