Apples!

It's been a busy week full of apple activities.  We tasted
4 varieties of apples, noted some observations and then
voted for our favorite.  Red Delicious won.

We dehydrated some apples. . . .

and they were pretty good.

We peeled apples. . . .

made miniature apple pies. . . .

and apple juice.

We took the peels outside. . . .

and measured them.

Mrs. Maitland was a good sport and let us measure
her with the apple peels.

We used a variety of measuring tools.

Our longest continuous peel was 96" long.

When we put all of the peels together, they were 27 children
long.

 It's amazing how many ways you can use apples as a teaching tool.  We tasted, measured, painted, baked, squeezed and patterned.

Bike Day!

 Good times on the playground with the Bumblebee class.  Bike day celebrates one of the last few nice days of sun with the opportunity to put on a helmet and ride on the playground.  In the classroom, we tallied types of bikes, number of wheels on each toy and total number of wheels on the playground.

Dot Day!

We love Dot Day. . .

it involves lots of painting. . .

and fun activities.

Plus, we look really good in our shirts!

We've got this "a,b" pattern all figured out. 

Checking out the Seabury bus,

we did a safety drill,

learned about the safety lights,

and had our picture taken with our new bus driver.

Dot Day is based on a book by Peter Reynolds. The message of Dot Day is that anyone can be an artist, you just need to start and be brave. This book is perfect for Seabury where we put a lot of value on a growth mindset. In a school where things come easily to many of the children, it's important the children learn to persevere when things are new and maybe not quite so easy. This is a fun day to make that point and build community.  It's a win-win!

A morning in the Ladybugs

Ladybug class 2018-19

We start everyday with STEM boxes; each box contains a math,
literacy or engineering activity.

On Friday mornings, we gather as a school for
singing and presentations.

Math can take many forms, today's activity used pattern blocks
to introduce patterns and geometric shapes.

After morning recess, the Ladybugs and Bumblebees joined
together for a science experiment. 

We talked about the way a scientist performs an experiment;
we used safety equipment to be safe,

made some observations of our materials,

and then added vinegar to baking soda to see
what would happen.

We recorded our observations and conclusions.

By lunchtime, even the dog was tired.