Critter Carnival

On days like today, I marvel at my good fortune of becoming a 2/3 MAP teacher here at Manor. Today was a testament to the creativity, silliness, and fun that I am privy to on a daily basis.  Today was the tenth or eleventh annual Critter Carnival, a celebration of the first thematic study of the year.  This year, the MAP classes studied a wide variety of critters found in our Manor environment.  Ms. Rebecca's class investigated earthworms; Mr. Tim's class, crows; Ms. Erika's class, silkworms; Ms. Nina's class, ants; Ms. Chris's class, geckos; and of course, Ms. Emily's class, rodents!

Room 5, adorned in adorable, handmade rodent masks, marched to the outdoor amphitheater to present their “Rodent Family” song, proudly displaying life-sized rodents on sticks for the crowd of MAP students, teachers, and families.  They sang loudly and clearly of the amazing attributes of the 1,800+ members of the rodent order.  The catchy tune, borrowed from the classic T.V. Show, “The Addams Family”, had the crowd snapping along while they learned all about the “super, awesome creatures” we have come to know and love—rodents!

After the presentations, the class met with their older Buddies from Ms. Chris's class to learn about their critter, the gecko.  Then they brought their buddies to room 5 to share their rodent wisdom with the big kids. 

Each member of room 5 studied a rodent of their choice, some on their own, some with partners.  Here are the rodents we now know a lot about.  Go ahead... ask us anything you ever wanted to know about them!

The naked mole rat—Alexander
The mouse—Orion and Aidan
The rat—Ruby and Tori
The lemming—Kaden and Skylar
The Guinea pig—Maya and Meleah
The flying squirrel—Anya and Connor
The prairie dog—Sophia, Nancy, Pema, and Liza
The beaver—Jeremy
The porcupine—Miles and Sacha
The capybara—Brad and Diego

A special thank you goes out to Mr. Gideon (my husband) who happily joined in the critter madness and captured the fun in photographs.  Thanks also to Katherine C. for a few fantastic photos.

Bite-sized Moments

There is nothing quite like a perfect bite of pizza.  That just-right bite of chewy dough, topped with tangy sauce, Italian spices, and cheesy goodness can’t be beat.  A good, satisfying bite hits the spot and can be savored for a moment.  Then you are ready for another bite or two, or three.  Maybe you’ll eventually eat a few pieces of that pie. 

I’m pretty sure that you wouldn’t try to stuff the entire pizza in your mouth all at once, though.  Obviously that would turn a yummy dining experience into a disaster.  You’d choke and possibly make yourself sick.  You might even turn yourself off to pizza all together.  That would be a tragedy!

The same goes sharing stories from our lives.  There’s nothing quite like a great story—a succinct tale packed with flavorful details.  On the other hand, we all know how painful it can be to read a “never-ending story”, one that wanders from getting out of bed in the morning all the way to crawling back under the covers at night.  Yes, perhaps an interesting event happened at some point during the story, but it is utterly lost in the endless tale.

In writing workshop, the kids in room 5 have been working on writing yummy, bite-sized tales of special moments from our lives.  Here is a sample of a story that illustrates that focus I’m trying to help the kids find.  This is a moment from Aidan’s life.  BONUS: It stars a rodent!

“One day I was riding my bike in a forest. 
A squirrel was in the way. 
I got to see it up close. 
It was mainly black then brown. 
It ran 18.12 miles per hour.”

Short, sweet, and to the point, don’t you think?  A great start of a memory story, in my opinion.

Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing our special memories with you, so be on the look out. 

Here is a moment from my life that I shared with the kids.  It stars some of the memorable characters in my life.  Enjoy!


When Nappy Comes to Town

What is it about Nappy, the Great Dane, that I love so much?  He's huge and ungainly.  He takes liberties with the food left on the counters.  He takes up the entire couch and cries when you try to push him off.  He runs around like a rowdy horse.  Oh, but he is 100% sweet and loving.  His childlike energy is contagious.  And he makes me laugh nonstop with his over-sized antics.  Just looking at his giant head cracks me up.

Nappy comes to stay with us on the Hill every six weeks or so when his people go out of town.  Josie and the other dogs are used to him, but they don't necessarily look forward to his visits, at least at first.  Nappy is like a five-year-old in a linebacker's body, and it takes the girls a day or two to adjust to his oafish ways. 

Here's what happened when Nappy showed up last week.

 

 Josie was doing her evening thing... just chillin'.

Nappy showed up and greeted his BFF, Gideon.

Oh, Josie, look who's here to see you!

Say it ain't so.  Lord help me.

JOSIE!!!!!!!!  It's me, Nappy!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

What did I ever do to deserve this?

California Wildlife Assembly

Today we had a very special treat, thanks to the YES foundation.  The California Wildlife Center came to visit Manor.  I don't know who enjoyed it more, the kids or me.  I had to hold myself back from running up to the front of the multipurpose room to snuggle with these AMAZING wild animals.  Megan and Tess, naturalists with the Wildlife Center, brought five visitors including a nervous red fox, a stately red tailed hawk, an unfortunate looking oppossum, a great horned owl, and a wonderfully large rodent--a porcupine.  By chance, the kids and I had just shared a book about porcupines earlier in the morning.  What luck to be able to observe one in person less than an hour later. 
Here are some of the kids of room 5 sharing their thoughts about our wild visitors.

“Hey, we saw an opossum today at an assembly. We learned about a red tailed hawk. We saw a porcupine. We saw a red fox. We learned about 6 animals today. We saw a horned owl. The horned owl has a good sense of hearing. These animals are all in America.”
--Diego

“I saw a fox named Cache. His story is: On his first fieldtrip to learn to hunt the mom and her cubs were walking across the road and a car came and hit the mom! The people felt terrible. They knew what to do. They took [the cubs] to a wild care [center] and the wild care center sent them to the place that takes care of the animals of all species.”
--Nancy

“It was really fun even though I was late. The three animals I saw were amazing. I saw an opossum named Oh No, an owl named Luna, and a porcupine named Thistle. It was great. I did not see the red tailed hawk or the fox.”
--Sophia

“A girl found a possum and said Oh No! And brought it home and laid it on the carpet. It pooped and she said Oh No! And she put it on the couch…” To Be Continued
--Aidan

“The wildlife came to school and we saw Ohno. Ohno is an opossum and this is how the story goes. A lady came home and she saw an opossum. She said Oh No and she picked up the opossum and it pooped on the rug and…” To Be Continued
--Liza

“First we saw a red fox. He went to the animal shelter because his mom got run over by a car when the fox was a baby. Then we saw a red tailed hawk. He went to the shelter because kids were throwing rocks at him and he fell out of a tree.”
--Alexander
“Right before the assembly we read a book about porcupines. In the assembly we got to see one!!!”
--Orion

“We went to an assembly. My favorite animal I’ve seen was a red tail hawk. We also saw an owl.”
--Miles

“Today I saw an opossum at school named Ohno. She is so cute and fluffy.”
--Tori

“We went to an assembly today. We saw a porcupine. It was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. They said it had 30,000 quills!”
--Kaden

“1. Opossums are big!
2. Great horned owls have ears.
3. Red foxes go on fieldtrips to learn how to survive.”
--Skylar

“There was a bird and when he was a little birdy he was in his nest with his sister. Some kids were walking home from school and they saw the nest with the baby birds in it and one of them said, Hey, I know a game. Let’s throw rocks at them and see who gets the closest. Some of them thought that wasn’t a good idea and they went to get a grown-up. When they got back it was too late. The nest was already out of the tree. So they called the wildlife center and they brought them [there]. His sister was okay, but he wasn’t.”
--Pema

A Walk in the Woods

When I titled this blog “Adventures in Room 5”, I didn’t necessarily envision the kind of adventure we had today.


Over the past few days I have been administering assessments to determine the kids’ math proficiencies and spelling abilities. While I finished up some spelling assessments this morning, the majority of the class worked busily on their individual rodent research. For some of them, this was a real exercise in stamina, having to stick with one project for forty minutes. The kids did a great job focusing, and were in need of some physical activity. On the spur of the moment, I decided to reward them with a walk in the woods.

Off we went, full of excess energy and enthusiasm. When we reached the nature trail, there were two other classes arriving, with the same idea to take a hike. “Miss Emily, let’s go up this way. My old teacher used to do read aloud at the top of this trail,” suggested one of my adventurers, pointing at a trail leading up the hill. I gave a quick questioning glance to one of the other teachers who had just arrived. A shrug and a nod told me that it was fine, and off we went.

Soon we came to a fork in the trail, and we as a class decided to take the trail to the right in order to avoid plowing through a beautiful spider web stretched across the trail to the left. The trail brought us to a rather steep set of stairs descending to the creek bed far below. Some of the kids bounded down effortlessly. Others looked at me with doubt. “I’m a little bit scared, Miss Emily,” admitted one younger student. We all grabbed hands and carefully worked our way down the steps to the bottom where the others were waiting.

And then someone tripped and took a tumble. With great consternation, the class gathered close to help our friend up. After a few deep breaths and a Band-Aid from Gary (our aide), we all buddied up, held hands and made our way down the last steep, slippery stretch of trail to the picnic tables below.

“Well, that was some kind of walk, huh?” I said to the kids, breathing a sigh of relief. Big eyes, toothy grins, and nodding heads told me they pretty much agreed. Everyone had an opinion to share...

“It was an awesome, but crazy adventure,” said Alexander.

“I was scared that Miles had broken his arm or something!” said Ruby.

“I was trying to snowboard down the leaves on a piece of bark,” explained Jeremy.

“I thought that it was scary at first, but then I figured out that it was really, really fun!” said Pema.

“It was awesome and I liked it because it had to do with nature,” Nancy explained.

“Me and Jeremy adventured farther than the rest of the class when we got to the bottom of the stairs,” said Connor.

Kaden said, “It was kind of unexpected.”

“It was exciting with a lot of action,” Maya added.

“I was scared that Miles might have gotten hurt,” Diego shared.

Liza agreed. “I was scared that Miles got the wind knocked out of him.”

“At first I thought it was scary, but after, when I started slipping, it was fun,” said Sophia with a happy grin.

“It was sort of scary, but at the end I felt okay,” said Miles.

“I held on to a pole so I wouldn’t fall,” Anya explained.

So, as you can see, our little walk turned out to be a bit more than we had bargained for, even though it was no more than fifteen minutes long. But watching the kids help each other out of a tight spot and celebrate their successful journey made me realize that sometimes challenges can turn out to be unexpected and unforgettable bonding experiences.