The K bunch have certainly developed the capacity to follow a long conversational thread. I come in and, as they say, release a conversational hare, and they're off like a pack of bloodhounds. I like to start the class with one news tidbit each week just to emphasize that there is always new material which won't be in your textbook or prepared curriculum. Lately there have been several news items about astronomy. Cassini sends back information suggestiong that one of Saturn's moons has rings of its own, and another one may have an ocean of liquid water (or ammonia perhaps) underneath its frozen methane outer shell. The Spitzer space telescope (yes, Spitzer, not Hubble - - did you know that there are four space telescopes?) detects a nearby star with dust clouds that appear to be in the pre-planetary stage, like our own solar system about 7 billion years back. And in the K class the hands sprout up like bamboo (on my mind because of the bamboo at Norwood Park, also called Dog Park, where they did a major thinning recently and now new shoots of bamboo are growing at about four feet per week), and the conversation takes off like, well, a rocket. I still bring in something intriguing to demonstrate each week, and reserve some time for The Question Box. They are enthusiastic about the demonstrations. This week it was Things that Do and Do Not Fizz with Baking Soda ( vinegar, alcohol, water, lemon juice). And if we don't get to the Question Box, woe betide us! Because those questions are important and the writers will insist and persist until they get their air time.
But our biggest problem is always that we run out of time in the midst of whatever it is, because everybody has something to add, or some point they want clarified, or some extension they are puzzled by. Are you wondering whether your child is participating adequately? The answer is Yes.
Also due here is a shout-out to the classroom guides who provide just the right quiet corrections to keep an animated fifteen-person conversation from turning into a chaotic hubbub.
Over in SilverSurfers, I am following a textbook suggestion that the older group, developmentally speaking, starts to appreciate more leadership rather than unstructured topic selection; and also appreciates topics that continue and grow over time. So, we started with Things that Do and Do Not fizz with Baking Soda, but then (thanks to A.T. for the suggestion) segued into How Much Vinegar does it take to "use up" a certain amount of baking soda. Last week we collected data to answer the question, and this week we all made graphs. I don't think they've graphed experimental data before, and you could hear the electrical crackling in the room as twenty trillion neurons said "whooooaaah.. this is something new, and I get it".
I'm also trying to have us learn a couple new bone names each week. We hang velcro-tagged labels (in Montessori lingo, Nomenclature Cards) on the classroom skeleton. The children are then free to examine these tags, and remove them and reapply them, during the school week.
The What Kids Do textbook also says this is an age where the sense of fairness and justice is developing and is a key interest. That sounds nice and sweet, right? We develop a sense of justice. How lovely. What the textbook author (who is at home giggling as his readers get out into the classroom and discover the subtle understatement) omitted was that this really means a prolonged hurricane season of melodramatic and tragic storms at every microscopic suggestion of unequal treatment. Who got to sit next to The Science Guy today? Why didn't I get to? Who got to help hand out the graph paper? Does everybody get a turn at opening the Question Box? When is my turn? He sniffed the vinegar twice! and so on.
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