Nov
29
2011
Mrs. Argus
Michael drives his car on 465.
One of our new materials in class is cars. We have a tub with various sizes and types of cars that the kids love making ramps for and building streets for. Today, I noticed several friends running their cars over maps we have set up in the classroom. Aidan was tracing a thick red line on our Indianapolis map on our wall. “Its driving!” Aidan and I talked about how the thick red line made a box around Indianapolis. I explained that its a very busy highway- the 465 Interstate! Michael came over and began tracing his car along 465 as well. I am really excited to see where this global, map, geography investigation takes our class.
Tags: capable, curious, inspiration
Nov
18
2011
Mrs. Argus
Cameron and Miss Schmidt look at a globe together. Cameron spots Antarctica!
Today, our class started a discussion on how we could show off our airplane to our families and friends while displaying the knowledge we have learned about flight. We decided we would like to go on a pretend trip to somewhere around the world and are inviting you all to join us! This event will most likely take place one evening before Winter Break. When we get back from break, our class will have a discussion on where exactly we want our flight to take us. Today, we began an investigation on maps and globes, and atlas’. The kids had some great observations about our new materials. When looking at a map of Indianapolis, the kids immediately picked up on locations like Lawrence and Fishers and pointed them out. Monica, Zek, and I looked for our houses together on the map. Then Messi noticed something. “Mrs. Argus! The Indianapolis Airport!” He saw the large airport on the map and everyone got very excited at his find. Then we began noticing small planes around the map. We wondered what these were for. We looked down at the legend and found that the pictures of small planes indicate small airports across Indianapolis. There are quite a few!
Tags: curious, inspiration, thinking
Nov
16
2011
Mrs. Argus
The class in front of an Indiana nature mural.
- Friends watch the airplanes take off and land from the balcony.
This morning, the kids came in so excited for our field trip. They all started cheering when we saw the bus was ready for us and we could load 🙂 We took I-70 towards the airport and as we got closer, the kids began pressing their faces up against the bus window in excitement. “Mrs. Argus! It’s Fed Ex!” Da’Sean shouted. The kids have been very excited about seeing the Fed Ex logo because we notice those types of planes most often in the sky. Also, one of our parents happens to work for Fed Ex at the airport so we feel we have a special connection. The kids were filled with wonder and excitement throughout the whole trip. We unloaded the bus and had a tour of many of the airport’s major components, including ticketing, baggage claim, the barbershop, security, and saw many pieces of artwork. Oh yeah, we also saw airplanes! At one point, Christian looked up at Miss Schmidt and said, “I love this place!” One of my favorite parts of the trip was after lunch. We gathered the kids in front of the large floor to ceiling window in Civic Plaza and sat on the floor and did observational drawings of the planes taking off and landing. The detail and precision on the kids’ artwork is outstanding. Miss Schmidt and I wrote down the children’s observations and noticings throughout the trip and I will be sharing more of those soon in the coming days.
- Sticking together for safety at the airport.
Tags: curious, field trip, Indianapolis Airport, inspiration, project
Nov
06
2011
Mrs. Argus
Paper planes are back in full swing in room 104.
Our class has recently seen a resurgence in creating paper airplanes. We never stopped making them, but for a while there was a little lull. All of sudden, we have close to 20 airplanes made a day during studio and explore. On Friday morning, I asked the kids if they would be interested in flying their planes outside on the big playground. They immediately said Yes! I let them know that at the end of the day we would be flying them and they could work on them throughout the day during studio and explore. Some friends worked all day adding special modifications to their planes, some worked on making them look beautiful with colors, numbers, and labeled parts, some friends made more than one plane and were excited to test both. At the end of the day, we took our planes outside, learned how to safely throw them from the playground equipment and let them fly!
- Michael’s plane flies in front of him as he goes down the slide.
We made some pretty neat observations as we were outside. Many kids noticed the wind was manipulating where the planes would fly. Lucas said, “If the plane is flying that way, and the wind comes, it changes and goes with the wind!” We practiced making predictions and paying attention to the wind and guessing what direction the planes would fly. We also noticed the wind had varrying strength. Angela said, “If it’s big wind, the planes go far!”
Tajanaye getting ready to launch her plane from the dinosaur.
A group launch. Will the planes go the same direction with the wind?
To top off our experience outside, while we were walking in, Messi cried out, “Look! The sky!” Everyone looked up and saw a variety of jet strems in the sky planes had left that afternoon. The kids were so excited to see them.
The sky Friday afternoon.
Tags: creativity, curious, inspiration, paper airplane
Nov
03
2011
Mrs. Argus
Friends look for similarities between their artwork and the photo.
- Our inspiration.
Yesterday, Mrs. Kary shared one of the neatest pictures I have ever seen-a picture of the sky filled with jet streams from all different directions. She commented that Regan had seen it outside and gotten really excited and it turns out other friends saw it too! After getting a copy of this neat photograph, I shared it with the kids. They were inspired to re-create this picture and we decided to use white paint and blue paper to create skies. We marble painted with a marble covered in paint, and rolled the marble carefully over the paper in a little tray. Some of our re-creations look very similar to the original inspiration picture, some are much different! We noted different shapes and symbols that were created by this unique art method too.
Messi liked the technique so much he made several masterpieces!
- Ruth gives marble painting a try.
Tags: art, inspiration, project
