Month: September 2015

After our discussion on cycle. We continued our learning on seasons. We went on a forest walk to observe and explore our environment. Here are some of our noticing…

The trees:

Tomasz: “the wire is around the bottom of trees so that the beavers don’t eat them. It is to protect the trees.’

Alex: “The tree is broken because it has tipped over.”
Tomasz does not agree: “It is still growing because there are some green leaves on it.”
Some of the students agree with Tomasz and some don’t. They all agree that they need to do some more observations.

We looked at the difference between small trees and big trees and agreed that the big trees were older.
Gabi: “This tree may be 100 years old!”
Safia:“There is also a wire cage on it to stop the beavers eating it.”

The mushrooms:
Nick: “the mushrooms are growing out of the tree, but it is not safe to eat. You cannot eat it.”
Soeun: “There are two mushrooms!”
Veronika: “There are 2 mushrooms because it’s a big place so enough room for 2.”
Tomasz: “I saw a big, huge mushroom at the forest in Poland.” He thinks if we look carefully we may find one as big in our forest.

We noticed the mushrooms in the tree but also that there were some smaller mushrooms on the floor of the forest.
Nick: “They have leaves around them.”
Alexandra: “The mushrooms are brown and smaller than the ones in the tree.”
Altai: “The leaves are over them so they don’t get wet if it rains.”
Mrs. Zurfluh: “Do mushrooms need rain or water?”
Nick: “Mushrooms need rain because everything dies if there is no rain.”
Alexandra: If no rain and the mushrooms would die.”

The bird house. This caused a lot of discussion with the students.
Alex: “Birds live in it.”
Gabi: “Birds live in trees so why do they need to go to a bird house?”
Tim agreed with Gabi.
Altai: “Because it’s cozy and looks like a house.”
Amie: “Because there is food in the bird house.”
Alex: “Yes, people put food in the house in case there is no food for the birds in the trees.”
Tomasz: “It’s a small house, only small birds can go into it.”
Julia: “Only a few birds will be able to eat at one time.”

The beavers den.
Nick: “There are flowers growing around the beavers’ den.”
Alexandra: “Flowers also grow on the grass.”
Alex: “They also grow on the ground.”
Mrs. Zurfluh: “Do you think beavers like flowers?”
Nick: “Beavers like trees and bees like flowers!”    Alexandra: “Bees get nectar from the flowers.”
Safir:“Butterflies also like flowers.”
We are still wondering and trying to find out whether beavers like flower.

Many ducks live in our forest.
Gabi: “I saw 17 ducks.”
Alexandra: “Ducks quack!”
Nick: “Ducks like bread.”
Julia: “Ducks like to swim.”
Mrs Zurfluh: “Ducks also stick their heads under water, I wonder why?”
“To find food.”
Amie: “One Duck made a big splash when it landed on water.”
Alex: “Ducks can fly and they can swim.”
Veronika: “Ducks can swim really fast!”

On our way to the forest Alex noticed how green the forest looked. He wondered – ‘if the forest is always green or if it changes.’ We decided to take a photo of Alex in front of the forest and then next time we go back to see if we notice any changes.

We took a photo of KZE on the bridge. The boys were especially interested in the structure of the bridge! Nick and Tim were sure that boats would not be able to go under the bridge but Nick had a good solution!
Nick: “Boats cannot but submarines can!”
Gabi: “AND paper boats!”
Altai: “AND remote control boats!

We will go back to the forest soon.  We are wondering what we will see next time…

One afternoon, Mrs. Zurfluh showed students a picture of a bicycle wheel and asked: “What do you notice about the picture?”

At first they noticed that it was a tire, a wheel, it was round and had lines (spokes) on it. “It was a circle. It had two circles on it.” After some discussion they decided that it went  around and around. This brought us on to the idea of a ‘Cycle’ – something that happens over and over.

Mrs. Zurfluh asked: “Knowing that cycle is something that repeat again and again. Can you think of anything in our environment or life that we can call it a cycle?”

Tomazs: “It’s like a clock. It goes around and around.”
Ada Amie: ” The flowers grow and grow, then they die, and then grow again, and never stop. And that is a cycle.”
Tim: “The earth goes around and around, and don’t stop.”
Altai: “Day and night. We get up in the morning and go to sleep at night.”
Veronika: “I don’t know how to say in English. (Then she said it in Russian. Another friend tried to translate for her) “It was like the days and months.” The days changing – Seasons!
Altai: “People too. Start with babies, they grow, and grow, and become old and die. And start all over again.”
Tim: “Same as the turtles. They lay eggs, they hatch, and then they grow and lay more eggs.”
Ada: “The Sun. It comes out in the morning and goes down at night.”
Altai: “The trees get older and older and bigger and bigger. They cut them down. And then new tress grow.”

The students all agreed that our schedule is a cycle as well.

After our discussion on cycle. We continued our learning on seasons. We went on a forest walk to observe and explore our environment. Stay tune for more of our learning stories…

During math inquiry, KZE students explored ways to classify (sort) objects into different categories.  Students took off their shoes and Mrs Zurfluh sorted the shoes into various groups.  The children identified why they thought the shoes were in the groups eg Velcro, laces and slip on shoes.

Then students sorted their own shoes into 3 different groups of their own choice and explained the reasons why they had put their shoes into 1 of the 3 groups.

The first group, children reasoned that:
Safiya – “all the shoes are black.”
Amie – “the shoes are all black and have Velcro.”
Gabriela – “the shoes all have Velcro.”
Alexandra – “the shoes are all black and have Velcro.”
Ada – “the shoes are all black and have Velcro.”
Veronika – “the shoes are all black.”

The second group
Alex – “I put my shoes in this group because they are all big shoes”
Tim – “I put my shoes into this group because they have Velcro.”

The third group contained Mrs Zurfluh’s slip on shoes.

Tomasz and Tim were unsure of why they had put their shoes into the second group.  Tim and Gabriela felt that maybe they were all medium sized shoes but the rest of the students did not agree. We then decided to put Tomasz’s crocs into the 3rd group with the slip on shoes.
Alex and Altai said:” the first group was open shoes, the second group was closed shoes with laces and the third group were slip on shoes.

But Tomasz definitely did not think his shoes belonged in that group although they did not have Velcro or laces!  So Mrs. Zurfluh put Tomasz’s and Tim’s shoes into second group and asked: “What about this?”

Children thought for a long time.  Safir then suggested that it will work because the first group was girls’ shoes and the second group was boys’ shoes!  Ada agreed with this.

At the end, students noticed that we can sort things into different groups in many different ways as long as we can explain why.