Morning Adorable

This year I have been creating my own Activboard flip charts with current events. On the Los Angeles Times website, I discovered an interesting feature: Your Morning Adorable.  They feel the best way to start your day is with an adorable animal photo.

Last week I started adding a morning adorable photo to our morning flip chart and the students love it. I would like to feature their own pets.  Please feel free to email any pet photos to me and we will use them all.  The picture featured here is Emma, who belongs to one of the girls in our class. Our class would like to post a morning adorable in our buddy classroom too.

Chinese Poetry: The Three Perfections

In Ancient China, scholars believed in the Three Perfections: painting, poetry, and calligraphy. Steven’s lesson today introduced the children to calligraphy as an art. Steven has visited China where he has met calligraphers dedicated to keeping old traditions alive, and hung a beautiful scroll made by Hu Fengquan.

After gathering everyone around a large table, Steven shared the four treasures found on a scholar’s table: rice paper, delicate brushes made from bamboo and horse hair for poetry and calligraphy, a beautiful block of elaborately decorated ink, and an ink stone made from river stone. For inspiration, scholars often had intricately decorated fans, carved brush pots with nature scenes, and stones with scenes carved by nature which bring qi into the home. Although the children used real ink from China in their painting today, Steven showed them how artists prepare their ink, grinding it gently on the stone. Preparing ink this way, prepares the mind to write or paint.

The children were given the opportunity to practice their painting strokes using brushes from China. “Imagine the brush dancing on stage or as an ice skater skating across a pond. Look at the strokes and ask yourself, qi or no qi.” After practicing, the children listened to Chinese music from Lake Landscape on a Moonlit Autumn Night, and using “grace, energy, and qi” painted delicate strokes on rice paper. Their work was used as an inspiration  to write a new poem. “Use your imagination and let the painting speak.”

Chinese Poetry: Your Life is Full of Treasures

On Steven Ratiner’s third classroom visit, he started the lesson by talking with the children about the art of revision. He shared his personal poetry notebook and showed how he revises again and again, always in search of the perfect words to capture images.   Through revision, a poet works until he/she owns all of the words line by line, rhythm  by rhythm, and silence by silence.

Today’s lesson was on poetry from the Song (Sung) Dynasty where man’s interaction with nature was important. A scroll was displayed giving a detailed glimpse of the artist’s world. The class discussed the three perfections according to ancient Chinese scholars: painting, calligraphy, and poetry. People in ancient China even attended snow parties for inspiration to write poems, and wrote their own lyrics in poetic form to familiar folk songs.

“Find one treasure in your life.  If you pick one moment from your memory and write about it, it’s one you’ll never forget,”  Steven told the class. After listening to the crisp clear sound of Tibetan prayer bells, each child wrote their own poem about a special moment in their life.

Take a Journey Into Your Imagination

When Steven Ratiner, our poet in residence,  visited our classroom on Friday, he started the session with a lesson about the art of revision. He talked about how it is important to choose images for yourpoem carefully so the reader can see the story in their mind.  The title is important too and opens the door for the poem to come through. Steven himself, revises his own poems an average of 25 times. Through revision, a poet works until he/she owns all the words line by line, word by word, and image by image. For me, this really points out how a handwritten draft is becoming a lost art.

The children then shared some of their first poems with Steven. As each poem was read, Steven listened carefully and offered feedback without giving the children words to use.

Next Steven showed a beautiful hand painted scroll and demonstrated how it can take your

mind on a journey. He also shared a 100 year old hand carved wooden brush pot from China so intricately carved with a scene from nature, it looks like you can reach inside and touch the trees.

For today’s lesson, each child had brought from home a special object that hold memories for them such as a baseball, trophy, shell, or stone. A museum of objects was created in the classroom which the children toured until they found one, perhaps their own, that could take their mind on a journey “Use these objects to harness the power of your imagination,” Steven told the class. “When you feel ready, begin to writeyour poem. Show all steps in the journey and make your images sharp and clear. Take this journey and you may even learn a new secret about yourself.” With that, the children sat down and wrote. The results are amazing. We will soon be sharing them with you.

Chinese Poetry: Finding Your Own Area of Retreat

This past Wednesday, Steven Ratiner, our Chinese poet in residence, visited our classroom for the first time. After giving the children an overview of Ancient China, he explained how we will be borrowing poetic techniques from Ancient China, and will practice writing poems which will paint vivid images in the reader’s mind.

After hearing about events that often inspired the Chinese poets, we moved our lesson to the outdoor classroom overlooking the river.  Each child was instructed to find their own special spot.  This spot will become their area of retreat throughout the year.  Whenever we return for poetry or journal entries, each child will mark their special spot with a stone which will eventually become a small cairn. Focusing on this spot, the children will write about the changes they notice throughout the seasons.  This is similar to what Henry David Thoreau did at his cabin on Walden Pond.

At an assembly earlier this month, Steven discussed the theory of the open bowl. Using a singing bowl and wooden mallet from Tibet, he explained that when they are preparing to write poetry,  their minds should be open bowl. When the mind is open bowl, they become much more observant about the world around them and ready to write.  While the children waited quietly in their spot with their eyes closed,  Steven rubbed the wooden mallet around the rim of the bowl, making it sing. Once the ringing stopped, the children opened their eyes, ready to see the world around them in a new way, and began writing poems about whatever inspired them at the moment.

Artifacts of the Future

“What would people in the year 2525 learn about us if they went on and archaeological dig and discovered 19 tiny decorated clay pots from our class buried in the schoolyard?” That was the question posed to our class this week as an introduction to what archaeologists and historians can learn about the past.
To begin, each child was given a tiny clay flowerpot to secretly decorate with six symbols which they felt would tell about themselves. Knowing that it would be unlikely for archaeologists to find 19 clay pots over 500 years old in perfect condition, I told them that the pots would actually be broken and reassembled by someone else in our class who would not know the identity of the artist.
Yesterday we took on that challenge and there was a lot of excitement in the room as they carefully reassembled the pots using glue. Each child then worked to identify some of the symbols on the pots and attempted to figure out the actual artist. We will have our final projects on display during Open House next week.

Welcome to Fourth Grade!

Welcome to fourth grade!  It looks like we are going to have a great class.  One of our big projects this year will be keeping our class blog.  A homework link will be included.  

Be sure to check weekly for updates about our classroom activities.

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.