Log Cabins

We have been reading Little House on the Prairie during our Snack/Read Aloud time.

The Ingalls family traveled all the way from the big woods of Wisconsin to a homestead near Independence, Kansas.

We have gotten to one of my favorite parts of the book, which is when Pa builds their log cabin.

Undoubtedly at this point in the book after seeing the above picture, one of the kids makes a connection about Lincoln Logs.

I pulled out the Lincoln Logs from our storage room and the kids started building and exploring. 

Here is a picture of the recreation of Little House on the Prairie in Kansas, near Independence.

Next, I introduced them to a movie about a man named Dick Proenneke.  

He was a man who decided to test himself to see if he could live off the land, all alone in Alaska.  He built a cabin from scratch, using only hand tools--he brought the steel parts of the tools, but even built the handles of the tools with local wood.  We learned that he was a mathematician when he measured and constructed the cabin, as well as a writer because he recorded his life and experiences in journals.

Today before our early release, we got to see him building his cabin in the documentary Alone in the Wilderness.

The kids were in awe as we watched him chop and saw, carry tree trunks, construct his log cabin, build a fireplace, make furniture...just like Pa in Little House on the Prairie!

To learn more about Dick Proenneke and his adventures in the Alaskan Wilderness:

click these words to learn more about purchasing the documentary

click these words to learn more about his life

click these words to be taken to the National Park website where his cabin is located

click these words to go to a youtube search for various videos about Dick Proenneke

or watch this youtube video below:

Do you think you could do something like Dick Proenneke?

Crab Moon

Another author that stretched out the story bit-by-bit is Ruth Horowitz in her book, Crab Moon.

In her story, Ruth describes a boy who witnesses the high tide of the horseshoe crabs one summer when his family visits the beach.

What do you wonder about horseshoe crabs after watching these videos and reading the book?

High-Diving Horses

In Writing Workshop we have been working on making our stories come alive.

We have been reading lots of books by authors who make their stories come alive.  

Ezra Jack Keats has been one of our favorite authors!

We also noticed how Linda Oatman High stretched out her story bit by bit during the exciting part of The Girl on the High-Diving Horse.

Room 408 loved hearing the "inside story" of how it felt for the character Cordelia to get the chance to be one of the girls on a high-diving horse.

Here is some historical footage of an actual girl on a high-diving horse:

Would you high-dive on a horse's back if you got the chance?

Starry Night

Room 408 did a mini-inquiry and studied art by the painter Van Gogh.

We learned that he was troubled and often his paintings reflected his moods.  Later in his life, he started painting with bright colors.  He makes the viewer feel like they are in the painting.  In the painting below, he made the sun look so bright it actually made us feel like we should put on sunglasses!

One of the best paintings he ever did was called The Starry Night.  He likely painted this when he was really happy: 

The first graders noticed the stars and moon in the sky, as well as the "Grinchy" tree.  They also commented on how the sky looked like it was moving.  I had found a cool optical illusion for them to try so that they could see the movement in the painting.  I hope you'll try it by clicking on the one of the following links:

optical illusion

or click on the video below:

We also played with the Starry Night app:
After reading about Van Gogh's life and investigating The Starry Night, we created our own interpretations of The Starry Night.  To see our Van Gogh mini-inquiry, watch the video below:
One of the highlights of our inquiry was seeing The Starry Night in dominoes:

What did you like about our Van Gogh mini-inquiry?

Inner Voices

In our Research Workshop we have been busy recording new learning about space in our Research Clubs.  We are now trying really hard to listen to that voice inside our head that reacts when we meet new learning.  Check out our reactions to our new learning about space!

"Amazing: The Luna 1 space craft visited the moon in 1959."

"Mars has the largest canyon in our solar system. Cool!"

"Under the planets, is there ground?"

"The storm [on Jupiter] is twice the size of Earth. What?!?!"

"Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all have rings. Wow!"

"How does the moon change shape?"

"I didn't know that the moon is bright."

"The sun is exactly at the center of our solar system.  Wow!"

(in black at the top) "The Sun has been shining for 5 billion years! Wow!"

"Wow! Saturn:  There is possibly more than 30 moons."

"The Big Dipper!"

"In 1608 Hans Lippershey made the first telescope with lenses in Holland. Wow!"

"A UFO is an alien ship."

"When you see the city lights at night they look like stars."

"When we spy Orion the Hunter in the sky we know it is the season to harvest. Wow!"

"Yellow stars are in between blue and red. Wow!"

"We could not live without the sun. Earth would be dark and cold without the sun. Cool!"

What fact did your inner voice react to?

Thinking Deeply About Characters

In Reading Workshop we have been focusing on the characters in the books we read.  We can learn a lot about characters when we think deeply about what characters do, what they say, and how they act.  We gathered a lot of the books we have read together this year that have strong characters.  We used our Drawing Pad app to think deeply and respond about characters in our books.  We posted our learning to Kidblog.

Breleigh thinking deeply about the man & woman who got Rainbabies; Dane thinking deeply about Sophie

Jillian thinking deeply about Song Ho

Cooper & Jacob thinking deeply about Peter

Drew thinking deeply about Peter

Tela thinking deeply about the queen from Rumpelstiltskin

Ellie thinking deeply about Horace, Morris & Dolores; Teagan thinking deeply about the animals from Yes, We Can!

Robin thinking deeply about Piggy & Elephant

Grant thinking deeply about Tommy

Lily thinking deeply about Ira

Jorel thinking deeply about Oliver

Rylee thinking deeply about Piggy & Elephant; Aaron thinking deeply about Wodney Wat

Sophia thinking deeply about Peter

Andrew thinking deeply about Anansi the trickster spider

Who is your favorite book character?  Why?

Research Clubs

This week we worked in our small collaborative groups investigating more focused space topics, which we call our Research Clubs.  We will stay in these groups and eventually teach others about our space topic.  We're adding lots of new learning to our Research Club charts!

We have also been posting some of our space learning from Research Clubs on Kidblog.

What are you learning about in your Research Club?