Architectural Tour, McConnell Mansion and LCHS, and the science of predicting the 'cotyledons'

Dr. Reese describing the first house of the Architectural Tour of the Fort Russell Historic District. The kids were being introduced to the architect Henry Black and the use of the local reource of the area, basalt.

Throughout the tour, the kids took notes on the age and address, design features, and did a sketch. They learned about the  area and how the people of Moscow lived at the time.

 The kids learned a lot about how the houses reflected the ideas that people thought represented beauty and the attention to detail that made the houses so unique even if they had some of the same design qualities. The outside of a house was as important as the inside in representing character and individual ideas and the changes in technology.

Here, Mr. Groves, a Docent for the Latah Historical Society, explains what the items and furniture are, and how people lived in the rooms. Each had a purpose and the lives of the families can be felt in his story telling. He did a wonderful job explaining so much. The kids had questions and could easily go back and learn much more.

Cranking up the gramophone

Wondering why people collect hair, how servants lived, and what kind of food was prepared and served.

The great lessons of human sanitation removal

Mr. Wittier, the Curator of the McConnell Mansion, shared primary source documents and a collection of irons that the kids took guesses about which was oldest. They saw how the technology changed. The were reminded that script, which they have learned and used a lot this year, will allow them to read historical material in its original form.

  Below are the prompts and the essay introduction paragraphs. The focus or topic sentence is underlined or blocked so that the kids could remember write details and specific information to support it from their notes. They chose one of the prompts. We have had 2 Writers' Circles, did a big lesson on writing conclusions, and their revisions show that they gained a great deal of content from their day with on the field trip.

  The pumpkin seeds are from the one I brought in from the fall. The kids planted and made a prediction of when the cotyledons would appear. Based on their background with the Sprout Houses in the fall, some were quite accurate. We talked about the variables and they definitely know the difference now between the cotyledons and new leaves. Each student is taking their sprout home after the new leaf is at least 2 mm.

 Getting ready for the Fun Run!! Ms. Ruane gives directions. The kids did great. We took all the data from the run and did some math--mean, median, mode, and range.

Sound Waves, Teacher Fu and Chinese class, Planet Monologue Presentations

Learning about sound waves and experimenting to get low and high pitch.

  Teacher Fu has been coming to class every Monday and Thursday. She is part of the Confucios Center's outreach to schools. She has done a wonderful job teaching Chinese. The kids have really enjoyed her lessons and have gotten quite competitive over saying, writing, or demonstrating their Chinese character knowledge--and all for stickers! The picture below is from a day when she taught them all the words for panda and the face parts. In the picture on the right, you can see Teacher Fu in the maroon shirt. We will miss her, but she is teaching classes this summer and then goes back to China. She is sad and excited she said to go home. We will miss you Teacher Fu!

Planet Monologues--This was the final Science project that included research in texts and on the NASA

 website. It was a process to learn how to write a narrative and include all the parts and then make sure to have a costume. The kids turned in their bibliography and the pictures are from small writers' circles and hearing parts of their work from facts to what they wanted to say to be entertaining. The goal was to have a piece of performance writing that was between 1:30 and 2 minutes packed with facts that are specific, detailed, and new to their classmates.  I checked out a whole bunch of books from the Latah County Library, Moscow Branch.
The kids had to self evaluate and another classmate that had the same planet evaluate to give them critical feedback.

Graphically organizing the notes they have
by putting them into a  star shape to find out if they
have enough information and
what bullet points they can put on the
card. It was to help them
memorize and get the sequence of their speaking points

Sharing information and timing what work they have so far.

Mercury

Venus

Uranus

Jupiter

All of the Solar System in character!

These are the pumpkin seeds from the first of the year when the kids were estimating. By coming full circle they are planting these and made a prediction on when the 2 small leaves (cotyledons) inside the seed will open. They will take home their pumpkins and plant them.

Flag Detail and The Exceptional Engineering Expo!!