What? Re-runs?

Yes, it's a re-run, but bear with me - - there's a plan. Everybody built (again) a molecular model of water. They all enjoyed the exact same exercise last spring, and they enjoyed it again. But the reason for bringing a rerun into our programming is that there's a whole lot we can get into about atoms and molecules, and this makes a perfect entry point. Really, the fact that I got a huge box of styro balls at a good price on eBay has nothing to do with it.

I also received in the Question Box a lovely set-up question about how clouds form. There is a whole lot in the Official Montessori Curriculum about states of matter and the water cycle, so this student has given us the opportunity to get into all that. Water – solid liquid gas – molecules – crystals -

And yes, the water molecule is shaped like Mickey Mouse.

It's intriguing how they completely get it and completely don't get it at the same time. The same child will give me signals that he knows exactly what I mean, and then more signals that he hasn't quite registered that this is anything other than a styro Mickey Mouse.
The tough concepts:
- what a scale model is
- how totally tiny a real atom is
Actually, I think most adults don’t get how tiny a real atom is. We can all work it out on paper, but it is difficult to impossible to really grasp it in the imagination, to visualize or feel it. There are about 602300000000000000000000 of these things in a teaspoonful of water. Really. Envision that number. Let me know when you've succeeded, because I can't do it.

Understated

It was a quiet session last week. The fact that 40% of the class was out sick may have had something to do with it. Q&A (or I guess I should say Q&Q) continued, again with a slant toward the puzzling, the deeply mysterious, the unanswerable.

This week's library books: a book on early man: text too thick for K-1, but with good pix of homo habilis and australopithecus, skulls and artist's renderings of entire animal; also, two octopus books.

[Name omitted for internet privacy] found an unripe pomegranate, which led to the idea of seed dispersion.

With both the Older Group and the Younger, we ended with my asking them: what did you see or discover last week? Just by observing around you? I'm curious to see if this will resonate with them, or just submerge in the kidly consciousness.

For that matter I'm curious which parts of this-all are sticking with which children. I don't intend to give a final exam to find out, and I can't do what I'd like which is spend the entire day with each child discovering everything about them and their learning. I do appreciate the clues yall have been giving me when we meet at dropoff and pickup.

The taxonomic tree is definitely getting overcluttered. Its soon-to-be-made replacement will have to be very carefully planned. Then we can maybe bring in pictures (or bones, shells, feathers, twigs) to glue onto the appropriate spots.

Even though the viruses that the children are carrying around are rather interesting little things, here's hoping that they (the children) kill them all (the viruses) and come in to school without them. Besides, we don't have a handy electron microscope to look at them (the viruses) with.

Question mania

Your childrens' questions are guiding us right into all the key material. Energy, light, evolution, physiology, taxonomy.
Some of them got so intensely committed to writing down questions for me that they marched right out of science circle to go write more questions in their private workspaces. At one point this mind virus spread until half the class was busily scribing away. Circle was getting lonely.

My uncle Robby says that just asking the question is a significant learning experience, whether or not they stick around for an answer. One child proudly brought me her freshly written question card. I read it out loud, was ready to talk about it - - but she had gone back to her table. She was obviously pleased I had received the card, and as far as she was concerned that closed the subject!



One more note about the solar system demo the previous week. I left the eight scale models of the planets (yeah, we're down to eight planets nowadays) on the science shelf. Here's earth, Mars, and Neptune (click to enlarge).





Corn kernels, pinheads, acorns - - these remain in the classroom. And the sun? Hmm.
Right after class, during cleanup-and-organize, I looked at the enormous, bright,oh-so-bouncy ball representing the sun. I looked at 20 very playful kids. I looked at Deborah.
I said: I don't think you want me to leave this Sun here, do you.
She, firmly: No. I don't.
Nuff said?

Flashy demos

We took some time out from the 'questions' format because I had some demonstrations I just had to share.
We modelled the solar system to scale. Well, mostly. We could not fit all the planets on premises. With the sun represented by a basketball, and Mercury a pinhead, we started measuring off how far away everything orbited. Our solar system began with the sun (in the classroom). At this scale, the earth (represented by an unpopped popcorn kernel) lands near the garden, and Mars is over the fence (Neptune is close to South 1st Street).

The rest of the solar system is empty space.

Also, due to [ name omitted for internet privacy ]'s question last week about crab gills, I brought in a live Dungeness crab from Central Market. My goodness: I didn't realize how loud some of the girls can scream. In the end everybody was willing to take a close look at the animal, and count its legs.

It has come to my attention that some of your children are arriving at class with a better preparation in general sciences than many college sophomores.
You know who you are.
Keep it up. I'll keep running, to remain a step ahead as long as possible.

Mold followup

The mold finished eating all the sour cream and died, leaving behind a million spores. Here are a few (visible right now in Primavera classroom). This is with the microscope at 400x. The second pic gives an idea of the immense quantity of spores (we're looking at one teeny spot of one teeny smudge taken from that huge mass of mold).