Salt activities

Many, many thanks to Caroline Richardson (Max's mom) for coming in to talk with our class on Tuesday. Our class learned some fascinating things about salt and the human body, and the necessity of maintaining a precise concentration of salt in ourselves. There were some fascinating stories told!

The children have also been conducting some exciting cooking projects with salt. Two variations on an old-time catsup recipe are awaiting their taste trial tomorrow, and I expect they'll both be delicious. Yesterday, the class was served a scrumptious salad seasoned with lime juice and black lava salt—I highly recommend it! On our trip to the Spice Merchants store in Kerrytown last week, the children chose five varieties of salt to use in their projects, and the differences in taste are fascinating. And after break, we'll find out whether or not some brave students have managed to effectively preserve beef and salmon using various salts and herbs.

Yankee Air Museum

Photos

Here are just some lovely classroom photos from today, and some that I couldn't get to format properly yesterday:

Crystalline experiments

There have been wonderful scenes of unrestrained curiosity this past week, all related to crystals. To begin with, salt forms crystals, and last week the children got to examine salt crystals through magnifying glasses. We had two types of salt crystals, sea salt and Himalayan pink salt (both bought at Trader Joe's), and after the children had observed them at their desks for a few minutes, I mentioned that if anyone wanted to undertake an experiment using regular school materials, I'd be glad to help... That was all the input I gave. What followed was a burst of classroom-wide creative curiosity that was entirely student driven! Some of the experiments that have been completed (or are still underway) include—but are not limited to—:

— testing the properties of salt as an antifreeze, by placing two cups of water, one salted and one fresh, in the freezer

— sprinkling the two kinds of salt on different ice cubes, to see which cube would melt first

— dissolving the salts together in a pot, and letting the water evaporate, to see if the two salts would be combined or separate in the residue, and to see what form (separate crystals? a solid lump?) that residue would take

— taste-testing salt water to see if the two salts could be reliably distinguished by taste

— placing large salt crystals in a cup of water, without stirring, to see what would happen

— testing to see which type of salt dissolved faster

— finding out whether warm or cold water dissolves salt faster

As to other types of crystals: the beginning of our salt theme coincided with the first snow of the year. We've taken the magnifying glasses outside, examining and drawing snowflakes on different days and at different temperatures. I've heard exclamations from all around the playground: "Oh I found a really good snowflake, come look at this!" "I think they're made up of tiny crystals, in strings..." "This snow is totally different from yesterday! It's like balls instead of snowflakes... almost more like ice than snow."

And yesterday, I got called over to the sandbox at recess to examine a piece of sod with ice crystals hanging below it. It is absolutely wonderful being around these observant, curious children.

December

We are ready to begin a new theme! Although the Summers-Knoll classes usually follow a common theme each month—each in our own ways—this month, our class is departing slightly from that tradition. While the rest of the school does author studies, we will be studying salt.

There are so many possibilities! Salt is (and has been) a crystal; a chemical compound necessary for human life and the functioning of our bodies; an economic staple of more than one civilization; an object of superstition; a symbol of social standing; and one of the most commonly used ingredients in cooking throughout the world. In the next three weeks, we're going to discuss salt in all of these contexts! We've begun already, and today the children plumbed some of their own knowledge about salt: that it is a rock, that it was used to pay Roman soldiers, that it is tasty, that our bodies require it and expel it, that it can be gathered by causing sea water to evaporate, and much more. As you can see, they are well prepared for this theme. The plans for salt month include a visit from Caroline Richardson (Max's mom), who will be coming in to talk to us about salt and the human body, and a class trip to Spice Merchants in Kerrytown, to see the many kinds of salt for sale there (and, perhaps, to buy some for a project...). I'm also looking forward to studying Gandhi's march to the sea with the children, in part because we've been hearing stories from the Mahabharata, one of the great Hindu epics of India, and it will be nice to tie that in with a more modern story.

There are several other field trips and special activities coming up this month, as well, including a school trip to see the Carolina Chocolate Drops perform at the Michigan Theater this Friday. On Wednesday, December 15, we will all be going to the Yankee Air Museum (harkening back to flight month); and on Friday, December 17—which is an early dismissal day—our class will have a read-in! Those students who were in my class last year will remember that on read-in day, everyone comes in pajamas and brings blankets and pillows... but most importantly, everyone comes with lots of books to read. Except for snack and recess, we'll spend the whole morning reading together.

This is going to be a tremendously fun and busy month in the classroom. I am looking forward to it!

Peter Pan

Since we finished Gwinna a few weeks ago, I've been reading Peter Pan aloud to the class. I love this book, and the children are really enjoying it. But it is startlingly different from the Disney movie! One of the first things the children noticed was that Peter himself is not always a kind or thoughtful character; while he is brave and fun and in some ways principled, some kids have already mentioned that he sounds like a bit of a bully. There are also all sorts of adventures in the book that never made it into the Disney film.

One question I've been asking the kids to consider as we go along is, "In what ways is this book different from a book that might be written today?" We began simply, noticing that the language is a bit different from ours, the people wear different clothes and have different routines (much earlier bedtimes for children!)... but gradually we are approaching some of the points that make this book slightly tricky for modern readers. Women and men are not treated equally. English people and Native Americans are not treated equally. And, as one child remarked today, a modern book might have characters who doubted or questioned themselves more, and had internal conflicts to address. We've begun writing journal entries and having class discussions on these topics, and it's possible that they may come up at home as well.

This is a wonderful book, despite its political incorrectness. Shakespeare also had standards and beliefs that don't align with our modern culture; all these works are worth enjoying with children, but they do need to be set in context and discussed. The children are bringing a good deal of perceptive attention to my questions about the time when this book was written, and it's a joy to see their focus deepen and their understanding broaden.

Christian Bök (Tuesday's visit)

Today, we were honored by a visit from Christian Bök. He gave a thrilling performance of three sound poems: "Seahorses and Flying Fish," part of a sound poetry sonata, and"Synth Loops". The children were electrified—we all were! Afterward, he taught us all how to begin beatboxing. After some enthusiastic applause and thanks, our class returned to our room and had a short discussion about the nature of Dada art. Ask your children what they thought!

With Christian's gracious permission, I took a short recording of his performance, with the intent of posting it here. Unfortunately, I can't get it to load—but you can easily check out his work (sound poems, univocalic poems, and his xenotext project) on YouTube. I recommend it!

Christine Hume (Monday's visit)

Our school has two special visitors this week: Christine Hume (Juna's mother), and the Canadian poet Christian Bök.

Monday

Today, Christine came into our room during our usual math session and gave the children an introduction to the sorts of constraint poetry Christian Bök uses in his writing. We looked at two univocalic poems (each of which uses only one vowel or pair of vowels throughout): "Ants and Aardvarks" and "Fireflies, Spiders, Crickets". The children then got to write univocalic poems of their own using the letter "i" (some of which were read to the class)! Christine also played a recording for us of Christian performing a sound poem: a poem containing no words at all, but only evocative sounds. The rhythms of that performance were so compelling that some of the children got up and started dancing! After Christine went on to the next class, we wrote a sound poem of our own together, and the children even thought of including elements that would be impossible in a solo performance; the final line is split so that one half of the group makes one sound, and the other utters two sounds in sequence. Our sound poem is entitled "The Snake, the President, and the Dodo Bird":

ptc rrr hhh

stoorB eeeeeeee

_______ whistle

ffffffffffffffff rrrps—hhhh

The Physics of Flight

Our class had a special visitor yesterday: Jamie Saxon, who is a graduate student in physics at the University of Pennsylvania, came in to talk with the kids about some of the physics behind flight. Last Friday, the whole school had watched a DVD called The Way Things Work: Flight, which mentioned that it is the faster movement of air over the top of a wing that creates lift. So, Jamie spoke with the children about the nature of pressure and force, the energy contained in objects of various masses and positions, and the conservation of energy. In the end, we had arrived at a simplified form of Bernoulli's equation, which describes the relationship between high speed (velocity) and low pressure: P + ¹/₂ρv² = Constant

(P = pressure, ρ = density, v = speed)

Understanding pressure by experimenting with lifting a table in the kitchen:

it was much easier when more people helped, spreading the force required over a greater area!

We pushed around a desk to learn about the nature of work (being force multiplied by distance)...

and in the process learned some things about the nature of equations.

Using balloons, funnels, and ping-pong balls, we learned that by blowing or pushing air through an inverted funnel, you can hold a ping-pong ball up inside the funnel—despite the fact that you're blowing down on it! The ball is held up by the low pressure area created by the fast movement of the air on either side of it. You can try this at home: all that's really needed is a funnel and a ping-pong ball!

In the end, each of the children got a strip of paper to take home, with Bernoulli's equation printed on one side and the terms of the equation defined on the back. If you blow across the top of the strip when it's hanging in your hand, the paper will rise—not because the air is slipping around to push it up from the bottom, but because you're creating a low-pressure zone above it!

Field work

Our class has had so many special events this week!

On Tuesday morning, we took a trip to the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA). Two museum docents were kind enough to take us on an hour's tour, focusing on Renaissance art, and on some works that didn't come from that time or place at all, but which might—or might not!—have been influenced by the Renaissance. On Thursday afternoon, some of the children made collages based on favorite works of art they'd seen at the museum. I heard a number of children say they'd like to go back sometime...

On Thursday, we were joined at Summers-Knoll by a class from the University of Michigan for a special playtime adventure. The children and students chose new names and powers for themselves, and rushed into a magical other world (sometimes known as County Farm Park) to embark on several quests. Most barely made it back through the gate in time!

On Friday, Mark Moellering was kind enough to take us to the Detroit Masonic Temple for a tour of a few of its historical rooms. How lucky our class was this morning, to tour some of the private parts of such a beautiful building! We saw a Renaissance ballroom, a medieval chapel, and more... It was a long tour, but the children were interested and polite throughout; I was very proud of them.

It has been a great (though exhausting) week—and this Sunday is Curious Epicures! We look forward to seeing you there!

EcoFair!

The annual Summers-Knoll EcoFair is at the end of this month: Friday, Oct. 29. For those who are unfamiliar with this tradition, the EcoFair is an all-school activity party, held on the Friday morning closest to Halloween. There will be multiple stations/activities for the children to participate in, but perhaps the most fun of all is in the costumes. Everyone—staff, teachers and students (and any parents who'd like to help out)—is encouraged to come to school in a hand-made costume manufactured from recycled/reused materials. Many of the children design and make their own costumes, which of course is an excellent learning experience. Feel free to be creative! The "recycled materials" part of the costume can seem intimidatingly restrictive, but remember: not all recycling is in the form of old cans! Hand-me-downs, thrift-store purchases, ScrapBox finds... all are excellent possibilities.

Gwinna

Yesterday, I finished reading The Wizard of Oz aloud to the class. In preparation for the theme that starts next week—flight—I offered the children a choice of two books, both of which center around children who can fly: either Peter Pan, or Gwinna, by Barbara Helen Berger. They chose Gwinna. It's a beautiful book, though not much known. It's not as long as some chapter books we'll read, so perhaps we'll have time for Peter Pan, too.

We're going to try a new reading system (new to me, too!). I'll be reading aloud to the children at the beginning and end of each day, and so we need the chapter books we're reading to be in school each day. However, if any child wants to take the book home to keep reading in it, that will be allowed for one night, on one condition: if that child reads ahead at home, then he or she needs to pick out a couple of favorite pages from that reading to share with the class. This will be good practice reading out loud, and will allow the children to share their favorite moments in the book with one another. I am discussing with the children the importance of practicing their readings out loud at home before bringing the book back. I look forward to seeing what moments in the story strike them!

A lovely outdoor day...

The kids have such good ideas! This morning, after we'd listened to The Wizard of Oz some more and practiced our gavotte on the playground, I asked the children to settle in for some quiet reading time... and Melissa immediately suggested that we do our reading out-of-doors. What a brilliant suggestion for a beautiful breezy morning!

After a little while spent indoors writing sonnets, horseback riding continued the outdoor trend, and we ended the day by heading over to sit in County Farm Park while creating personal coats of arms for our Renaissance Feast. What a beautiful Friday.

Pendulums

Last week, we put our best feet forward for the beginning of a year of scientific exploration. First, the children read a short illustrative story, and then engaged in discussion about the necessity of experimentation to prove one's ideas. We learned a bit about the scientific method... and then we began. Following in the footsteps of Galileo Galilei, we created pendulums out of beads and string, and set them swinging. The children showed immense patience and dedication as we timed the pendulums to see how long it would take for them to come to a halt. I was quite impressed!

Renaissance men and women

We are well launched on our Renaissance theme! This week, we have learned a little about the nature of the Renaissance, and my mention of humanism led the children to initiate a very interesting conversation about the nature of religion on Wednesday. They were both respectful and articulate, and listened to each other very well; it's an excellent beginning to a year of intellectual exploration!

We've also written sonnets (with Joanna), and learned a few rhetorical devices which we've applied to self-introductory speeches. Rhetoric was widely taught in the Renaissance. I think we'll devote some extra time to spelling, this month, too, since the codification of English spelling was a Renaissance phenomenon. And this afternoon, we began learning to dance the gavotte!

First day of school!

As you can see, we are off to a good start!

Themes for the year

Welcome to our class, everyone!

Here is the list of the Summers-Knoll themes for the coming year:

Sept: Renaissance
Oct: Flight
Nov: Leonardo da Vinci
Dec: Salt
Jan: Theatre and Puppetry
Feb: Simple Machines
March: Poetry
April: Food Science
May: American Prairies

The December theme is different from that which will be followed by the rest of the school. This occasionally happens at Summers-Knoll, and when the theme of "salt" was proposed last year, I got much too excited to give it up. I think we're going to have a fantastic time!

Gettysburg, Pt. 1

Well, here we are, in Gettysburg, PA! It's the end of the second day of our big field trip; we are exactly half way through. It's going really well! So far, we have toured the Julius F. LeMoyne House in Washington, PA (the home of a prominent Abolitionist and a member of the Underground Railroad), visited the Gettysburg Visitor Center and Museum, taken a 2-hour-plus horseback tour of the battlefield, and visited with Max's grandparents in their beautiful home in the Pennsylvania countryside. Still to come: further battlefield exploration, recitations of the Gettysburg Address, an Underground Railroad tour and a scavenger hunt!

Posting photos will unfortunately have to wait until we're back in Ann Arbor (I forgot the connecting cable)...

I hear that the rest of the school is having a lovely time, including a trip to the Arboretum in Ann Arbor. Our thoughts are with all of you, and we can't wait to see you next week!

Outdoors and in...

The Categories of Life

As we move into plant month, the children have been sketching different sorts of roots, bark, and leaves each morning, and as a class we've discussed what we already know about plants. Tomorrow, we'll begin delving more deeply into the question of what makes a plant a plant, by learning about taxonomy. Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species will all come into play! I'm looking forward to wowing the children with trees of life that show what a tiny fraction of the world's genetic diversity is contained within plants, animals, and fungi. Soon, we'll be classifying flowers by their morphology, inflorescence, and more. We'll begin learning about cell structure, too, as that is one of the areas where animals and plants most clearly differentiate. I've been looking forward to this month!

We're also taking our spring nature walk with Faye, tomorrow. Here's hoping it's a beautiful day!

Weekly Shakespeare

One of my favorite traditions in our class is our weekly Shakespeare play. Ever since our production of As You Like It, the children have been deeply excited about Shakespeare. So, as we read The Wednesday Wars during February and March, we began learning about one Shakespeare play each week in an effort to keep up with the references the book's protagonist kept using. It has become a beloved tradition: each Friday, I tell the children one of Shakespeare's tales, while they act it out. We all look forward to our weekly Shakespeare sessions; it's even common for spelling bee winners (who have the option to post heroic pictures of themselves on the wall, or have a parade around the classroom in their honor) to name the right to choose their characters in that day's play as their chosen prize. I do most of the speaking and storytelling, but we try to hit all the most famous lines of each play, and afterward, we sit for 10-15 minutes and talk about the themes and characters of the play. Thus far, we have done The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Romeo and Juliet, Much Ado About Nothing, and The Taming of the Shrew. My favorite part are the discussions afterward: the children have engaged deeply and shrewdly with such diverse topics as gender roles over the centuries and the relationship of power and choice (The Taming of the Shrew), the nature and pathos of tragedy (Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet), anti-Semitism (The Merchant of Venice), the pastoral tradition (As You Like It), and the results of revolution (Julius Caesar). I am continually astonished by the children's profound understanding of the events, characters and ultimate impact of each play.

This Friday: A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Water cycle

This past week, the kids accepted a challenge from me: they had to design a water cycle system, that could reasonably be built in the school with easily attained materials, that would include the following elements: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, infiltration (water absorbing into the ground, or dirt), and runoff. Within a few minutes, the class had begun to put together a design for a system involving a boiling pot of water, some plastic tubing, and a container of dirt with a filter beneath it... On Friday morning, we built it in the kitchen. Alas—the evaporation worked, and we saw some condensation in the tubing, as well—but our water never quite made it all the way through the tubes to the precipitation/infiltration stage, despite an effort to expedite the process by adding ice packs to the tubing. This is one of the things I love about the Summers-Knoll way of learning: it's all right to fail. It can be very instructive! After our water cycle didn't work the way the kids planned, they took some time to write in their theme notebooks about what went wrong, what went right, and how they thought they could improve the system. Perhaps we'll try again, sometime, with a few modifications!