The 4th-graders spent a morning at EMU for the SEMIS Coalition Community Forum. The forum is an annual gathering where educators and students come together to share their work with a specific focus on Place-Based Education. Our class shared their work on the Where is “Away?”
And How Do Chickens Work? Projects. Set up at two tables, with the posters they created hanging on the walls for visual aids, the students presented to local educators and high school students and fielded individual questions. Though they were some of the youngest students there, they were not intimidated and confidently shared their learning experiences leaving the audience thoroughly impressed.
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Students began assembling our compost bins this week. They will build a wooden chest to house buckets to collect food scraps as well as a wooden worm bin for composting. Before building, we needed to measure the width of the buckets to ensure the storage unit provided enough space. We then determined the size of the pieces needed for the base and the walls. From here, other students measured the pieces and cut them with the chop saw. This project provides students with an authentic opportunity to apply their estimating and measurement skills. Huge thanks to Tom Hohmann, Merlin's dad, for helping us gather materials and build the bin!
After our initial "Where is 'Away'?" project, we noticed that many items were being placed in the wrong containers, with recyclables heading to the landfills or recyclable materials not being properly washed out, and thus becoming unable to be recycled. Since we were in the midst of beginning other academic projects, this became a mini side project for interested students (thanks Mila, August, Dillon, Thomas, Chandler, Merlin, Cruz, and Steven!) We took this problem and asked ourselves: How can we get information out to the SK community in a bold, creative, and above all, simple way? Rather than an informational poster, students decided to convey new information on a recycling truck. To keep it simple, they posted two questions on the truck: 1) Is what you are throwing away recyclable? (Examples provided) and 2) Have you washed it out? Head to our atrium to check out this awesome installation, basically made in the spur of the moment! It will be hung on Monday 5/20. Some of our 3/4s facilitated "teach-ins" on this installation at the K-2 lunch and 5-8 lunch to teach students how to properly recycle and interact with their poster.
This week we had our first ever 3rd and 4th grade game night--inspired by the students themselves! They came to us asking if we could organize the event and hold our first (and hopefully, annual) game night. HUGE thanks to Itzel and Jessica for organizing this event and providing the cozy and magical tent in our courtyard!
Students finished their individual work on informational chicken posters last week! The posters are extremely diverse, from topics to designs. Check them out in the atrium and outside of the chicken coop area! Topics include safety/procedures, how to "speak chicken", anatomy of chickens, the deep litter method of coop maintenance, food for chickens, the story behind SK changing the law, and the breeds of our 5 hens! We are very proud of the final drafts each team was able to create.
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