Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Self-Assembling Hyper-Story

Sometimes the kids come in talking about stuff that can be thought of as way over their heads. And because of this, as adults, we normally just tell them to stop talking about it because we don't want them saying things that aren't accurate. This isn't always for the best, though.

For instance, take the ebola virus. The kids have come in over the last couple weeks talking about how we're all about to be wiped out by this horrific disease. No matter how much I try to get them to stop talking about it, I'm not with them every second during their lunch time nor recess.

Here is a link to the story we read today in class.  I like this website because it provides stories written for kids that relate to science and social studies. It went a long way to clarify for the kids how we are not in any true danger here in the United States. While of course we want to be sure not to eat any rotten meat (as if this is something new) nor touch any ebola victim's open wound (again, not really a good idea before, either), we are all pretty safe where we are, it turns out.

We had a good conversation today about arming with knowledge.

In addition to this, we compared two other stories in the reading book with graphic organizers.

We learned what a second person point of view is. Everyone knows what first person and third person are, but ask your child what is meant by second person. They should know this!

Lastly, we did a demonstration of a lunar eclipse and a solar eclipse, and the kids studied for a little bit using their flash cards for their states and capitals. On this very blog, to your left on the sidebar, you will find an online game for testing your states and capitals.

Today in Math, we learned about everything from Galileo to grocery shopping. In this, we discovered that you can usually make a good prediction based on what has happened so far (in the form of a graph, especially), but then again, it can be pretty dangerous to assume, especially when there are unknown factors involved.

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