Dear Families,

We began the week by reading new books about maps, learning about symbols, legends, weather maps, floor plans and blue prints.  The children were especially interested in the idea that a map was like a a bird’s eye view of a place.  We looked at a photograph of New York City taken from a plane and then at a map of the same place.  The children were able to identify roads, water, and buildings. “It’s like the feathered thief,” someone said, referring to our gardening song,  Inch by Inch: “In my garden I’m as free as that feathered thief up there.”

 

Big map of the world.

 

Map of America with sticky states, “Like a puzzle map!”

I love how the children continually make connections between all the things they are experiencing and learning about, assimilating information and expressing it in so many creative and surprising ways. “The thief wants to eat the farmer’s seeds,” someone continued.  “Yeah, because he’s hungry and birds like to eat seeds.”  Outside, I observed the children running after each other one day, with wood chips in their hands. “I’m following a map to find him. I’m on the map to get seeds. Robber, robber give me my seeds!” “Share, share, you have to share.”  “But then I won’t have grass!” We decided that when our ‘real map’ is finished we will need to take a picture from above to make another map of the map, a different kind of map!

 

 

Our map from above.

  

We were amazed at how much our seeds  had been growing.  Every day we have measured and entered our information on a graph.  We discovered that the grass grew one unifix cube a day.  We wondered if it would keep growing during the weekend.

 

Grass measurement chart.

We also looked at beans – a kind of seed that many of us eat.  We sorted the beans and it was interesting to look at a bean’s belly button and to think that the shriveled little garbanzo bean was what made hummus.   We planted our beans in clear bags and are watching to see what might happen.

 

Sorting and classifying – important scientific and organizational skills.

 

Hypothesizing: What do you think will happen?

Outside we saw our first bloom from fall bulbs – a sign of the hidden garden map we made at the beginning of school. We also walked in the woods and saw skunk cabbage,rushing water and lots of bugs and worms underneath logs and the bark of dead trees.

 

“It got bloomed – look! Our flower.”

 

Other blooms we made and colored, magically unfurling in water.

 

Looking for bugs under fallen logs.

 

What’s under the bark of a dead tree?

 

At the Shaker Village we were able to gently touch animals, milk a pretend cow, dress up in old-fashioned clothes and walk around and around the circular barn.

Mama Pig nursing all her babies.

 

Baby chicks.

Shaker Sisters and Brethren:

 

 

 

 If you have any maps at home, please bring them in for us to look at and share. Also, please remember to visit Chatham and Ralph’s Pretty Good Cafe’. I walked in this morning and heard several people commenting on how lovely the work was!  There is a visitor’s book to sign and we already have sweet messages and pictures, too.

B3s’ art at Ralph’s Pretty Good Cafe in Chatham, NY.

All the best!

Sarah