Legos

I promise I won't bore you with too many school-focused posts in a row, and apologize for all the non-teacher, non-family-of-my-students out there reading this! Feel free to cut out now if you want - no hard feelings, I promise. But since there are several grandparents living a million miles away who seem to appreciate pictures, and since I have full permission to post pictures of the adorable, (mostly) sweet kids I teach everyday... and since selfishly it's fun for me to share a bit of what I do here on a daily basis, here's one more for anyone whose interested!

Recently in Science we've been working through a book called "See How It's Made" by DK. It's a fun book - who wouldn't want to know that the original color of green paint was made from arsenic, or that the first ice cream cone was developed when a ice cream vendor at the fair ran out of bowls, and his next-door-booth waffle-maker got creative?

We've learned about how honey, CDs, and (ahem) sausages are made. I knew the lesson on pointe shoes would be a hit with the girls, and threw in not only a video clip of the Sugar Plum Fairy dancing in The Nutcracker, but also the Nutcracker vs. Mean Life-Sized Rats fight scene with swords for my lone boy (which they all went outside to reenact over and over again during chai break!). But as far as I can tell, yesterday's lesson takes the cake. After all, who doesn't like playing with LEGOS?

After watching some cool clips on how legos are actually made, I borrowed some Legos from a fabulous family here, had the kids design their own dream set on paper, and let them get to work creating it for real. M had princesses on the brain, and went with the castle motif, while E went Egyptian (I think?) and L was his usual detail-oriented self, creating wonders out of blocks. (Then again, I shouldn't expect anything different from the kid who regularly draws realistic Lego men on paper of his own accord!)

Here are a few snapshots of Science class - from drawn plans to finished products! (And I just realized the plans and finished products are reversed due to my taking pictures from the wrong side...)