Owl Pellets

There was great excitement in our room today during our science class. Wearing gloves and using small tweezers just like scientists, the students began dissecting owl pellets. At first everyone was a little skeptical, but soon there were cries of, “There’s teeth and a skull in here!” and the real scientific work and fun began.

The owl pellets (sanitized of course for school use) is a fairly new activity for our ecosystems unit. During these investigations, the children explore food chains and webs by dissecting owl pellets to determine the contents. This work must be done carefully with tweezers and toothpicks. Next week the students will begin matching some of the bones they have extracted to an ID sheet and will be piecing them carefully together to form as much of the skeleton as possible.

Cereality Day Breakfast Buffet

As part of our restaurant review writing project, we watched several videos of the Phantom Gourmet. In addition, we discovered a video and a website of an interesting restaurant concept, Cereality. At Cereality, customers can choose from a wide variety of their favorite cereals to mix and match with toppings. The class thought this was a wonderful idea for a restaurant, but since it is only in the midwest at this time, we decided to create our own version of it here at school.

For our own cereal breakfast cafe, the class had 14 cereals to choose from along with toppings, yogurt, fruit, and milk. Many thanks to CS11’s mother for running our own cafe today.

Click the comment section below to read excerpts from essays each child wrote about our cereal buffet.

Phantoms in Training

During the past two weeks, the class has been having a great time reading and listening to restaurant reviews written by the Phantom Gourmet. In addition, we expanded our search of restaurant review sites and discovered a few restaurants which are new to us and have an interesting concept. One of them, Cereality, features a breakfast cereal buffet with your choice of toppings. Although this restaurant is not in the Boston area yet, we have decided to create our own version of it in our classroom at the end of the year.

Meanwhile, everyone has been busy writing their own reviews of their favorite restaurants in the same style as the Phantom Gourmet. You can read their reviews on our new blog Phantoms in Training.

National Park Trading Cards & Powerpoints

Today our class is preparing for some special visitors. On Friday, a third grade class from down the hall will join us for our National Park/Landmark presentations. After carefully researching a National Park or landmark of their choice, each child put together a Powerpoint presentation complete with photographs and information about the historical significance of the place. The presentations are all well written and visually appealing. As a special treat, each student created a trading card for everyone in our class complete with a photograph and information about their sight.

We are very pleased with the results of our project and the students will be bringing their project home with them for you to enjoy.

Book Character Parade

We always know when spring has arrived when it’s time for the annual Book Character Parade. Everyone was very enthusiastic today and the costumes, ranging from Harry Potter to Curious George, were wonderful. Because the school is so big, many actually commented that it was the first time they had toured several of the classrooms. It may have been record breaking temperatures in the 90s, but that didn’t stop a great crowd of spectators outside the building to watch. Many thanks to all who attended today.

Can MCAS Math Prep Be Fun? Yes!

“This is a fun way to do morning work!” “Can we do the same thing again tomorrow?” Believe it or not, these were some of the comments made by the members of our class after a lesson introducing them to the style of questions found on the MCAS math test. What made the difference? A technology tool called ACTIVote.

ACTIVote was created by Promethean for use with the Activboard. After posing a multiple choice question to the class, each student can enter their selection A-E from a list by pushing a corresponding button. The class can then view the results in graph form. This allows us to automatically check the class for immediate understanding and each person is held accountable for an answer. Although the students do not know how their friends in the class answered the questions, the results can be printed out privately for the teacher in spread sheet form.

Journey to America: The Immigrant Experience

“Today was so much fun!” “It really was one of our best days ever!” These are some of the comments made by our student “immigrants” at the end of their full day immigrant ship and Ellis Island experience.

“All passengers must stand in an orderly line and wait to be admitted on board the T.S.S. Rijndam” stated a sign posted outside our classroom this morning. As each student waited quietly in the hallway with knapsack over their shoulder, they were checked in with passports and immigration tags, had their bags weighed, and were assigned to their quarters. Two lucky immigrants were given first class accommodations, two were assigned second, and the rest were in steerage. At first glance one would think the comfortable chairs assigned to first class would be best, but the steerage class quickly found ways to keep themselves entertained with books, pillows, recorders, and bongo drums.

After lunch, all passengers wrote in their journals and prepared to disembark at Ellis Island. After watching a very moving short video clip about Ellis Island, the inspection began. Our first station was walking up the two flights of steps to greet the doctor where some were placed in quarantine. Next was an interview by customs officials where students were confronted with questions in another language. Last was the literacy test where immigrants were expected to read several proverbs in English. As each immigrant was welcomed onto American soil, our first class passengers presented him or her with a plate of treats.

Our reenactment was a lot of fun and the students will be learning more about immigration after vacation. Meanwhile, their journal entries are very realistic. “I hope the river of tears will soon turn wet with happiness,” wrote one of our student immigrants. We will share more with you as our experience continues.

Click <a href=”“>here to watch the video clip shown in class

Magazine Writing Project Unveiled

Reading children’s magazines filled with amazing facts, engaging stories, and colorful photos is always enjoyable at school, but writing your own can be even more fun. After brainstorming a wide variety of topics ranging from lions to Athens, Greece, each child chose their own topic and has enthusiastically started research to write their own magazine.

Our magazine unit is a comprehensive and highly individualized project combining research, creative writing, and graphic design. Currently we are working on a feature article using three or more sources. Other sections of each magazine will include a letter to an expert, an imaginary or real interview based on factual information, poetry, game pages, trading cards, and picture pages.

Drumlin Farm Animal Educators

Soft rustling sounds could be heard coming from several covered crates in our classroom this afternoon as the students entered the room from recess. Noticing a huge tarp on the floor covered with dried leaves and surrounded by a huge plastic pen, everyone knew we were in for a real treat: a visit from Debbie Stein of Drumlin Farm and several “animal educators.”

During the next three months, we will be learning about ecosystems by studying the contents of our curiosity cart, visiting the Town Forest, and numerous trips to the river walk here at school. Debbie began the lesson today with a discussion about herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. Two types of turtles were placed in the pen to introduce the concept of animal adaptations.

Next to make an appearance was a large opossum. An opossum jaw and fur pelt were passed around while the children watched it eat. Finally after great anticipation and discussion, the great horned owl was introduced. Amazingly we learned that the owl can hear a mouse ½ mile away. All of the animal educators today have an interesting story. Once in need of help, they now live safely at Drumlin Farm where they can teach us about themselves

Writing Encouragement From Coach

There was great excitement and surprise last week when each child was presented with a portfolio of their writing projects from November through February. As the students reread each story, they were amazed at how much their writing has grown this year and they couldn’t wait to take their portfolios home to share with their parents. As you know, in our classroom we have two writing coaches: Coach and LC (Little Coach) who provide praise, encouragement, and writing tips throughout the year. This week the children completed their second five paragraph personal writing narrative. This morning as they entered the classroom, each child found a tiny personal note from Coach complete with feedback and a personal writing tip for each one. I look forward to reading more of the children’s stories this year.