Our Questions for Eric Carle

From Eric Carle

-How did you draw your seahorse? _E.F-G
-Why did your whale fit on 8 pages? –K.H
-Why is the very quiet cricket so quiet? –K.S
-Why did the very hungry caterpillar turn fat? –R.W
-Your movie is very cool! How did you paint your fish? –M.M
-I got “The Art of Eric Carle” the book. How did you make the rooster sooo perfect? –D.B-C
-Why did you make the very hungry caterpillar? –L.F
-Which one is your favorite book? –A.D
-How do you do your drawings? –D.B
-How do you do good art? –N.L
-Can you come to The Children’s School? –E.G
-Where do you live? How do you paint a dolphin? –I.F
-Have you written any books about Monkeys? –L.S
-Where were you born? Where do you do your art? –R.MA
-I love the book “Does Kangaroo Have A Mother Too?” How do you stick the tissue paper? –C.F
-Why do you use tissue paper? –E.K
-Why do you make animals for your books? –A.O
-Why didn’t you put any other fish in your books? Why did you not do it? I want to know more too! –A.R
-Can you show me how to draw a dog? I am studying you in my class. –K.F

Great Artists

From Eric Carle

We began our Eric Carle study on the 100th day of school by reading “1, 2, 3 To The Zoo” The children made their own zoo trains and wrote about what their favorite animal at the zoo was (and why). We integrated our learning about Eric Carle by mathematically solving how many animals were driven to the zoo, writing about our favorite zoo animals, playing dominoes with Eric Carle animals and playing “Go Fish” with our Eric Carle number cards.

On Wednesday we began making our own Very Hungry Caterpillars (what a learning experience that is!). The children watched a video where Eric Carle taught them how to make a caterpillar just like his. We then painted tissue (not nearly as easy as Eric Carle makes it seem), drew our caterpillars (ours were WAY cuter than his) and cut out and traced our templates. We also wrote about why the caterpillar was still so hungry. Lily said it best with “because he didn’t want the story to end.” so true!

On Friday we read “A House For Hermit Crab”. During the story we discussed if and why hermit crab was a good friend and how his feelings changed throughout the story. We then learned about habitats and got to create our own imaginary creatures and the habitats they lived in. The children also decorated their own hermit crabs and drew the habitat surrounding a hermit crab.
All is all it was a wonderful and busy week! I hope we can keep it up!

A Balance Becomes A Catapult

From Balances

From Balances

During lunch last week D.BC mentioned to me that he would really like to do an activity with seesaws and catapults. I discussed this idea with Kara (whom had recently finished teaching them all about balances) and our lesson was formed. We began by reviewing Kara's lesson on balances with the children and letting them use anything in the classroom to make a seesaw. After a quick brainstorming session on what could be used for the base and beam the children were off and creating their seesaws with triangles, blocks, yard sticks and rulers. To see more images click on the photo to view the Picasa album. Below is K.H testing his seesaw while D.BC & D.B using their seesaws to catapult their marshmallows.

K.H Balances Marshmallows from Lisa J on Vimeo.

A balance becomes a catapult from Lisa J on Vimeo.

Three Little?!

The children have been busy working on a variety of versions of The Three Little Pigs. After reading tales such as "The TRUE Story of the Three Little Pigs" and "The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig" the children were excited to create their own stories. Here is a sneak peek at what they have been working on.

Huff and Puff

While almost half of our class was at home huffing and puffing from an awful cold, friends in room 5 were doing their own form of huffing and puffing. This week we read the classic version of "The Three Little Pigs" and the not so well known tale of "The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig." On Tuesday the children participated in a Huff and Puff experiment where they had to predict how many huffs (and puffs) it would take to blow a lego, marble and a piece of tissue across the table (see video below). On Friday the children constructed towers that had to withstand my huffing and puffing. Each child's structure had to use at least 10 objects and could only be one foot high. I was quite impressed by their structures (and pretty lightheaded as well).

Huff & Puff from Lisa J on Vimeo.

CGI on the WSJ

Here is a great video that may help you better understand the value behind CGI (Cognitively Guided Instruction).

Long Ago....

Last week we looked at pictures of La Jolla from long ago. The children discussed the differences between the way La Jolla looks now (a lot more buildings and better roads) to how it looked then (a lot of dirt and not a lot of color). We saw photographs of businesses in La Jolla, people golfing at Torrey Pines and playing at La Jolla Shores. Here is some of the feedback we got when we asked the children what life was like 100 years ago.

One Hundred Years Ago…..
K.S. “Long ago, they had slow cars.”
C.F. “They horses that go fast.”
A.DR. “The cars had no windows.”
R.MA. “There were dirt roads.”
E.G. “They had horses and carriages.”
N.L. “There was no sun.”
R.W. “A lot of people died.”
D.B. “The train has circle windows.”
L.S. “The cars can be on water.”
E.G. “ They had house boats.”
A.O. “I think they had black and white T.V.”
M.M. “There is no food.”
A.R. “The film is black and white.”
L.F. “Cars looked like tractors.”
E.K. “They rode horses.”
K.F “The road was dirt.”
D.B. “The carriages were motorized.”
K.H. “The film was black and white.”