Month: March 2016

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Taking action

During our “How We Organize Ourselves” unit of inquiry, KZE students started doing different jobs to help take care of ourselves and our learning environment.

One of the jobs is playground monitor – to make sure everyone in KZE is making good choices and playing safely at the playground.

Last week, we noticed that there were too many students playing at the slide. A couple of them got hurt and were crying. Some people stayed at the bottom of the slide and didn’t move. When other students came down, they bumped into each other. “It was dangerous!”

We had a discussion on how to solve the problem. We decided that the playground monitors will help ALL students to make good choices, not just KZE students.

So we go straight to work: creating signs, brainstorming playground rules, discussing how playground monitors can help, sharing at the Kindergarten community meeting, taking turn doing the playground monitor job, and training other students to do the job…

When we notice a problem, we don’t ignore it. We take action and help solve the problem.

https://animoto.com/play/tkZX8QZlX111Ym3gEZhB9A

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Authentic Learning Moment

kaymbu-image2-20160315-1011Yesterday, Nick noticed something about the book “What the Sun Sees.” By Nancy Tafuri – the back cover was upside down. He told Mrs. Zurfluh about it. Mrs. Zurfluh asked: “What do you think about that? I wondered WHY?”kaymbu-image1-20160315-1011

Some students said: “the author made a mistake.” Some said: “No, it is not a mistake.”

So we decided to read the book and try to figure out why. After reading, students had a conversation about the book and all agreed that it is not a mistake. The author put two books in this book: the first part is “What the Sun Sees.” The second part is “What the Moon See.” This book is similar to the book we read last week which the author put three books into one book. KZE students shared their noticing and thinking about the book:

Alexandra – “When the sun is shining on this side of the earth, the moon is shining on the other side of the world.”
Safir – “Day and night has something to do with the way the earth moves.”
Nick – “There are two stories in this book. One is about the sun and one is about the moon. The way the book can be flipped over shows the difference between day and night.”
Mali – “At night the sun shines on the other side of the world. The sun and the moon sees some of the  same places in the book.”
Veronika – “The moon sees that the owl is not sleeping.  The moon sees places when they are quite.  The sun see places when they are noisy.”
Julia – “Sometimes it is daytime in one place but night time in another place.”
Altai – “The earth spins.  The moon and the sun are part of the cycle system.”
Tomasz – “The owl sleeps during the day – he is nocturnal.”
Amie – “The rabbit comes out at night and the lamb comes out in the morning.  The sun does not move.  The earth goes around the sun very slowly.  It starts in the winter in January and finishes in next spring. And it starts again and again.”
Some students disagreed with Amie’s thinking.
Ada – “There is a pattern in the book. It changes from what the sun sees to what the moon sees.”
Gabi – “The sun sees the playground when it is busy during the day time and the moon sees the playground when it is quiet at night.  The earth is turning around so we have day and night.”
Alex – “When the sun is out people are playing and when the moon is out people are sleeping. The earth moves and the moon and sun are part of a cycle.”

This is one of many examples that KZE students take advantage of the spontaneous learning opportunities. WAY TO GO, KZE learners!!!

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Mixing Colors

One day, Mrs. Zurfluh read us the book “Little Blue and Little Yellow” by Leo Lionni. After the story, we talked about what we noticed:
“If you hug each other, you change color.”
“So if two people hug each other, you change color?”
“No, people don’t change color.”
“If two colors hug each other, they change to a new color.”
“You mix two colors and you get a new color.”
We decided to try.

Here is what we noticed…
Julia: “I noticed that when I mix paint the colors change. I can make new colors when I mix paint.”

Seok: “I like to mix paint! Yellow and blue makes green. Green and yellow makes blue.”

Safir: “I noticed that when I mix paint the colors change.”

Alexandra: “I noticed that when you mix colors sometimes the darker color can still be seen and the lighter color cannot be seen. Mixing colors makes new colors.”

Alex: “I can explore different colors by mixing paints. White and red makes pink, white and black makes grey so adding white makes colors lighter. You can make colors that don’t even have names. All colors mixed together make a splendid color!!!”

Amie: “When I folded the paper with my colors mixed, the pattern was copied. When I added brown to green, green got darker, adding brown to orange made the brown lighter. I created a new color by mixing yellow and blue – green!”

Emmi: “Orange and white make a pinky orange color. Mixing colors makes things more beautiful. If I mix 2 colors I end up with 3 colors, the 2 colors that I mixed and a new color!”

Mali: “I mixed pink and red and it turned into pink. If I add white the color is lighter. I used yellow and green and made a whole new color.”

Altai: “I noticed that when I mixed orange with black because I used lots of black the orange became black. If I add black to any color that color gets dark.’

Gabi: “I had fun mixing colors. Two colors together make a new color like red and yellow makes orange.”

Ada: “Yellow and blue makes green. I think that mixing colors is fun and red and white can make my favorite color – pink! Mixing orange and black makes a dark color.”

Tim: “I mixed red and yellow and it made orange – it looks like fire! Then I mixed blue and black and made very dark blue. ”

Soeun: “I can make different colors when I mix colors together. I make new colors. I like mixing colors.”

Tomasz: “I like painting and I learned today that if I mix white and red I get pink. White and purple makes light purple. White makes dark colors lighter.”

Nick: “I mixed black, red, brown and blue. I can only mix colors with paint and not with color pencils.”

After our experiment, we shared ideas on how to display our artworks.
We put them together to create a class collage. This is one of the ways that KZE artists express ourselves.

https://animoto.com/play/mDVQ3TYB21Aq071ju7I60Q