EC Explores instruments of the music room!

We begin every early childhood music class by exploring instruments: How do you play that? What does it sounds like? What are some other ways you can play the instrument? Can you play it standing up, walking around, marching? What about playing with others? Can we make a band?

These are some of the questions I might ask students during their exploration time. I also sit back and watch them make their own discoveries and see what magical and wonderfully creative ways they come up with to engage with the instruments and one another. It's a super-fantastic time and a great way to settle into the music room, helping our youngest students gear up for making and exploring music and sound. 

Third Grade Exploring West African Stone Passing Games

Obwisana

Obwisana sa nana

Obwisana sa

Obwisana sa nana

Obwisana sa.

The rock has crushed my hand, grandma

The rock has crushed my hand.

The rock has crushed my hand, grandma,

The rock has crushed my hand.

Third graders started off the year learning to play a Ghanaian stone passing game called Obwisana.  The game features a singing part and an ostinato (a continuous rhythmic part) that accompanies that song using stones (or in our case, shaker eggs). As the song speeds up, the ostinato also speeds up, doubling over time. 

 We started by learning just the song first and keeping a steady beat on different parts of our bodies, then we practiced simply passing the "stones" slowly on the steady beat. Once students felt comfortable with the passing pattern with the ostinato, we tried speeding it up. Here is n example at a moderate speed:

Second Grade Shares their "Weekend News"

Each Monday since school started, second graders have written their few first editions of "Weekend News." This piece of writing happens each week all year long and is an opportunity for the students to share a bit about their weekend adventures.  Teachers and classmates get to learn a bit more about the students as they share about soccer games, family outings and activities that they enjoy when they are not in school.  As the year goes on, the students will be coached to add even greater detail to their writing and to practice their spelling and handwriting skills.  Stop by our classroom and you can read their work. At the end of the year, all of this writing becomes a book and is a wonderful way to remember all their weekend adventures!

Book Clubs in Third Grade

Third grade students are engaged in book clubs this fall. Stink and the Great Guinea Pig Express  by Megan McDonald and Ivy and Bean Book One by Annie Barrows are the choices for this first round of book clubs.

Investigating character by determining the personality traits of the main characters and finding the proof in the text is a way for students to think deeply about the story and to deepen their comprehension. Both of these books have writing that students can enjoy reading with expression and increase their fluency as they act out sections of the books. The plot is exciting and often surprising in both of these books.

Great conversation that includes students making connections to their own lives and to characters in other books is part of every book group session. Writing about their ideas allows students to further develop their thinking about the text. Both Stink and the Great Guinea Pig Express and Ivy and Bean are part of a series. We are already seeing students choose other books from both of these series to read independently. When students read several books in a series, they can really sink into their reading as they already understand the structure of a book.

AFS Home and School Association Annual Fall Food Drive

Noticing Caterpillars

Wednesday morning in Meeting for Worship, Andrea read the beautiful book, Butterfly House by Eve Bunting.  Thanks to her keen observation, a young girl rescues a caterpillar from being eaten by a hungry jay.  A gentle and loving story evolves along with her grandfather.

After Andrea finished the story, many students shared memories of their monarch study in first grade.  The story was particularly poignant for our first graders as last week several students made an amazing discovery in the science room garden as they were being very observant scientists. They found a large monarch caterpillar on a milkweed plant!! It was so exciting to see one thriving on plants planted just for monarchs a few years ago!

discovering a monarch caterpillar in the garden

thriving on milkweed 

Our Monarch Watch caterpillars arrived last week and we have been watching them closely everyday, writing and drawing about their rapid development.  We are learning a great deal about the importance of milkweed to their survival.  This Friday during Community Time the first graders and resource teachers set out to map the locations that milkweed is growing here at AFS and to get an up-close look at it where it grows. It is quite a miraculous process that the students are witnessing each day and the exploration of the milkweed plant will deepen their understanding and appreciation.

Fourth Grade Begins Exploration of the Lenape

The fourth graders had the opportunity to visit Churchville Nature Center's hands on Lenape living history village. We have begun our yearlong study of Philadelphia, and the students had many questions and wonderings about the indigenous Lenape people.  

We arrived by bus and hiked down a hidden trail through the woods that was like a doorway to the past. The village, tucked behind woods and fences, shares the customs and way of life of the Lenape before their contact with Europeans.

Students were guided through their day by an educator dressed in hand made deerskin clothing replicating the dress of the time period. They rotated through different interpretive stations with the help of their guide. 

As they learned the history, they interacted in activities that ranged from fire making, practicing the skills young Lenape needed to master to be effective hunters, pottery making, gardening, cooking, cordage making, long house construction and matrilineal family structure. 

The students quickly discovered that nothing was ever wasted and the Lenape were amazing at creating usages for every aspect of the animals they hunted. The children thoroughly immersed themselves in the culture and will continue to explore and research the Lenape and their history.