Halloween: Dress Up + A Parade + STEM = Happy Kids, Dogs and Teachers

Mrs. Towne and Mrs. Maitlen love to teach

 and love each other  and it shows on Halloween,

 even when one is a Viking and the other is a pirate!

Narnia Part 2: What Is Your Favorite Flavor of Turkish Delight? A Math Adventure

"At last the Turkish Delight was all finished and Edmund was looking very hard at the empty box and wishing that she would ask him whether he would like some more. Probably the Queen knew quite well what he was thinking; for she knew, though Edmund did not, that this was enchanted Turkish Delight and that anyone who had once tasted it would want more and more of it, and would even, if they were allowed, go on eating it till they killed themselves." C.S.Lewis in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Just what is Turkish Delight? Well, thanks to Amazon.com, we ordered a variety to taste and compare. Fortunately, it didn't enchant any of us and lead us astray. Instead, we went on a wonderful Math Adventure to find out which we like best!

Lemon, rose and mint flavors:

We started out voting for our most favorite flavor 

by putting a sticky note on the whiteboard. 

We discovered that a bar graph needs to be even at the bottom

in order to be read easily. 

We added our second favorites and our third/least favorites

The results were in. 

Our graph, with the title and its labels, tells the information we gathered
in an easy to read, visual way.

The next day we drew our own graphs on paper. 

With little instruction, here is what my math students came up with:

Using Create-a-Graph, we then made computer generated graphs.

It was tricky with the first, second and third choices but we did it.

And we LOVED it!!

And since we were so interested, we took the opportunity to learn how to read different types of graphs and to do our own surveys and graphs. 

Here are some of the results:

How fortunate we are at Seabury School that we are free to take a detour from our regular, sequential math plan and focus on what the kids are totally engaged in. 

When math class was over on one of the days we worked on these, one student loudly declared, 

"NO! I am not stopping math today!" Telling him that he could work on it at home seemed to alleviate his angst over math class ending. 

Narnia Part 1: A Walk Through the Wardrobe Door

We love the Seattle Children's Theater. Since these high quality plays often sell out quickly, we always scour the new brochure at the beginning of the year and choose a play that goes with our overarching concept. 

This year we chose The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe to go with our "treasure" concept. We were sure to find lots of things to treasure as we experienced the magic of Narnia.... 

In the weeks ahead of the play, we read the book aloud.

One day, we received a special letter inviting us to a very special event: a tea party!

It read, in part, 

....All you need to do is go to the Spare Oom. There you will find an old War Drobe tucked into the corner of the room. Open the door, make your way through and past all the fur coats and enter the world of Narnia.

Ahhhhh….Narnia. Look for the Lamppost. Near the Lamppost, you will find Mr. Tumnus’ home made ready for a delectable and scrumptious tea party. This is England, you know, and we must have our tea!

Find a seat and let the party begin. And then we’ll face our problems (math problems, of course!) [see Narnia Part 2]

So we went through the Wardrobe door...

Past the fur coats, into the land of perpetual winter...

...and entered the land of Narnia where a tea party awaited us. 

We had real tea and real sugar cubes...

and real scones and real Turkish Delight.

Later we learned about a real boy who was relocated during World War II from his home in Belfast, Ireland. Meet Mrs. Towne's Dad's penpal.

For over ten years they wrote back and forth. 

We marveled at Ronnie's handwriting. 

In literacy class that day we wrote letters to each other, a new favorite way of "work on writing." 

We were all about Narnia. For days the students were caught up in the

magic of the story and were even role playing out at recess. And finally, fully prepared and engaged, we headed up to Seattle to see the play.

 

We had lunch and played with the Space Needle as our backdrop:

On the bus ride home, looking at a map she drew:

A map of Narnia:

Comparing the book to the play:

We each wrote a thank you note:

So much to treasure:

good literature

adventure 

adults who listen to us

hospitality

integrity

happy endings

springtime

family

friends

Turkish Delight

Stay tuned for Narnia Part 2: 

What Is Your Favorite Flavor of Turkish Delight? 

A Math Adventure