Hi, I’m Margaret Dreier and I’m the Lower School Reading and Math Specialist. This year I’ll be sharing the teaching of fourth grade math with Barbara Bettigole as well as teaching reading to 1st through 4th graders. Over the course of the year, every 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th grader will spend several weeks in the Reading Room as part of a small group, reading, thinking and talking about books. We read fiction and nonfiction books, plays, short stories, poems and articles. We also play word games, and write and do projects in response to what we read. I’m looking forward to another great year of reading in the lower school!
First Grade Monkey Project IV and V
In the winter, the monkeys went sledding with some polar bears and baked cookies with Howard, the first grade reading room bear. Sometimes they went sledding on a polar bear, or took a nap on a sled with their friend Clark. Davey, Mickey, Mike and Peter (the monkeys) have had a busy few months, and so have the first grade readers and writers.
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What We’re Reading Now
A Dog on Barkham Street by Mary Stolz
McBroom’s Wonderful One-Acre Farm by Sid Fleischman
McBroom Tells a Lie by Sid Fleischman
Sebastian by Sarah Prince
Mrs. Grindy’s Shoes by Joy Cowley
Morris the Moose by B. Wiseman
Where’s Wallace? by Hilary Knight
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
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One Small Square: Building A Model Arctic Tundra
One of the 3rd grade groups in the reading room built a model of the Arctic tundra based on an idea from the book One Small Square: Arctic Tundra.
On the Arctic tundra, snow and ice sit on top of dirt, which sits on top of permafrost. Sometimes it's all frozen, but sometimes the ice and snow melt and the dirt thaws. The permafrost never thaws.
The book said to use ice cream, but that seemed like a waste. Some science teachers agreed we could use snow for snow and dirt for dirt. We tinted the snow blue so we could see the water that came from the snow when it melted. We used Jello for permafrost because it would stay solid when everything else melted, just like permafrost.
Our melting snow started to make a blue puddle.
We could see some of our meltwater soaking through the dirt, but it stopped at the Jello permafrost.
On the Arctic tundra, it never gets warm enough for puddles to evaporate and the permafrost stops them from soaking very deep into the ground.
The tundra is full of lakes, ponds and bogs in the warmer months.
Our tundra model showed the layers of snow and water, dirt and permafrost. The Jello stayed solid!
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Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!
March 2, 2010 is the 106th anniversary of the birth of Theodore Geisel, also known as Dr. Seuss. The Cat in the Hat, Horton, and Yertle the Turtle visited the reading room today to celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday. We read Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, Dr. Seuss’s ABC, The Foot Book, Yertle the Turtle, The Lorax, Horton Hears a Who and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. Happy Dr. Seuss’s birthday to everyone!
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What We’re Reading in February
Nate the Great and the Monster Mess by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat
The Ugly Princess and the Wise Fool by Margaret Gray
“The Nightingale” by Hans Christian Andersen
Polar Bears Past Bedtime by Mary Pope Osborne
All About Sam by Lois Lowry
Arctic and Antarctic by Barbara Taylor
“Aladdin and the Magic Pickle Jar” from Twelve Fabulously Funny Folktale Plays by Justin McCory Martin
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What We’re Reading This Week
Helen Keller
Tyler, Wilkin and Skee
Mr. Putter and Tabby Pick the Pears
Frog and Toad Together
All About Sam
Mole and Shrew Have Jobs to Do
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First Grade Monkey Project III
The further adventures of the monkeys, this time outside of the reading room, doing the calendar, having a picnic, having a feast, and playing the drums with their friend:
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4th Grade Glacier Experiment
The first group of 4th graders in the reading room this year finished the quarter by reading about glaciers. They did an experiment from a book that was designed to show how glaciers move and leave deposits of rock and sand called moraine behind. They followed the book’s directions to create some model glaciers. Then they changed the glacier “recipe” to see what would happen with different amounts and arrangements of gravel and sand. On the first day they made the glaciers and put them in the freezer, and set up the “mountainside” for the glaciers to slide down. On the second day they tested some of the glacier models and found a few problems. On the third day they adjusted the experiment and made different mountainsides with different slopes, and tested the rest of their glaciers. Here’s what happened:
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- The book said to attach the glacier to the top of the board with a rubberband, but that stopped the glacier from sliding at all.
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- Some big chunks of gravel did slide down from this glacier and form a moraine on the “mountainside”.
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- We made one big glacier with a layer of gravel, a lot of ice, and a big layer of sand. The big glacier started at the top of a shallow slope.
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- We borrowed some blocks from our neighbors in kindergarten to make our mountain slopes. We remembered first grade had some long blocks, so we borrowed two to make extra mountains to test our glaciers.
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- We put some sand on the mountainsides to see if the glaciers would pick it up and move it.
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- We made one steep mountainside as a glacier “racetrack” to see what would happen if a glacier moved very fast. It still left some moraine but didn’t move the sand much.
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- One glacier made a straight glacial river and dropped a big pile of sand and gravel. One glacial river made a curving path through the sand.
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- Our glaciers did a lot of cool things, but they didn’t do what the book said they would do. Future fourth grade groups will try the experiment to see what else we can learn.
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What We’re Reading in December
Sebastian Learns to Fly
Snowy Owls
Triplet Trouble and the Field Day Disaster
“The Cheetah and the Sloth” from 12 Fabulously Funny Fairy Tale Plays
My Place by Nadia Wheatley
One Small Square: Arctic Tundra
“The Dance of Elegba” in The Cow of No Color: Riddle Stories and Justice Tales from Around the World
Charlotte’s Web
Arctic and Antarctic
Looking for Fang
Sleeping Animals
Shut the Gate
The Flea’s Plan
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What We’re Reading: Week of 11/9
Charlotte’s Web
At the Zoo
Ice Cream
Look at the Sky
Frog and Toad Together
Nate the Great and the Missing Key
The Hundred Dresses
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