An Engineering Feat: Pulling Up the Draw Bridge

Project Based Learning: Our Colossal Classroom Castle

The Navigators are taking our study of the Middle Ages to the next level and are over-the-top excited about making a real life castle for our classroom. We have been experiencing collaboration, innovation, research, engineering, perseverance, creativity, trial and error, rock-paper-scissors decisions and a lot of satisfaction. Several children have engineered a winch to open and close the draw bridge, several are making elaborate banners and flags, others are making communication tubes, while others like to make secret rooms, cubby holes and a nearby Cathedral. It's fun to watch different personalities and strengths come out . 

The castle has become a quiet place for reading. It is still a work in progress and there are plans to put on a play or two. We'll keep you posted!

The Design Stage

The Engineering Stage

The Painting and Decorating Stage

More to come...!

Where Does Our Food Come From?

In preparation for our field trip to a local organic farm and our study of Botany, we looked at food labels and asked the question, "Where does our food come from?" We located the sources on a map and wondered what plants were grown locally. 

We headed to Terry's Berries for a tour of a local CSA farm and learned about nutritious, fresh, organic food.

All aboard for the hay ride

It was a beautiful sunny fall day.

Rows and rows of plants

Bees make food happen.

We got to pick apples...

and potatoes...

and squash...

and pumpkins!

We saw turkeys,

goats,

and chickens. 

  

And one final picture--our best pumpkin face!

Thank you to all the parent chaperones who willingly trudged through the mud and helped us carry our huge bags of organic produce. We hope you enjoyed making a healthy dinner that night! We appreciate you!

What Causes the Weather?

What causes the weather? 

Here are some of our answers:

wind

water

air

clouds

God

not sure

And thus began our inquiry-based study of meteorology. 

We've been observing that there is a change in the air. The days are cooler, the days are shorter, the mornings are foggy, there's a lot of dew on the grass and there are lots of spiders making webs. We grabbed our science tools and our sketch books and began our investigations. 

We were greeted by spider webs in the morning. 

"Are they very strong?"

"This looks like Halloween city! The webs are everywhere!"

The webs in the bushes are randomly and tightly woven. 

The webs in the trees have patterns. 

There are dew drops hanging from the strands.

Some of the webs have spiders. They are usually in the center.

They have long strands to hold them to the trees.

Let's take the temperature. 

The air is getting cooler. 

And the fog often comes in the morning. 

We had fun trying to read the poem in an eerie way.

  

We used chalk to make the eerie looking fog. 

Notice the red light on the Space Needle. 

It's the "Wheedle on the Needle." 

So, what causes the change? 

Here are our ideas:

fall

seasons

heat

the sun

One child then shouted out, "the earth going around the sun!" 

We're curious and ready to discover a whole lot more.