October 12-Teacher Work Day. School is closed!
October 24-Picture Day:
Class pictures will be taken on Wednesday, October 24. If your child is not at Hopewell on that day, please feel free to come have pictures made between 10:00-11:00. A group picture will be taken at 10:30. Feel free to bring siblings for pictures as well. Pictures will be available for order on or after October 24.
October 27-Pumpkin Festival:
Thank you to Rhonda Lamb and Caren Doleys for helping plan this event. If you are interested in helping, please contact them.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Hopewell Happenings: Science and Nature
A few weeks ago, some of our students began collecting acorns on the front deck. This week, we finished filling one of our sand buckets full of the small nuts. We read in one of our science books that acorns are the seeds of an oak tree. They drop from the tree and land on the forest floor where they can set roots and grow into a new tree. They also provide food for many of the animals that live in the forest. We have observed from our classroom windows squirrels and chipmunks feasting on some of our acorns.
*This week a group of older children questioned how many oak trees we would have if our bucket full of acorns took root and became oak trees. Well, of course that inspired a lesson. First I asked them how many they thought we would have. The estimates ranged from thirteen to three billion. I asked them how we could know for sure and they all agreed we could find out exactly how many we had if we counted them.
*We decided that we would use the golden beads to help us. We used the acorns as our unit beads and we started counting. Each child took turns counting out ten acorns and exchanging them for a ten bead. As soon as we had exchanged all of the acorns for tens we found we needed to exchange the tens for hundreds, and ten of the hundreds for a thousand. It turns out hat we had collected 1,347 acorns. We marveled at how many possible trees we had collected just from our outdoor classroom.
*At the end of the day, we thought it was time to return the acorns to our *forest* to help the squirrels and chipmunks have food for the winter. We will watch and see how many of the 1,347 acorns turn into great oak trees.
*This week a group of older children questioned how many oak trees we would have if our bucket full of acorns took root and became oak trees. Well, of course that inspired a lesson. First I asked them how many they thought we would have. The estimates ranged from thirteen to three billion. I asked them how we could know for sure and they all agreed we could find out exactly how many we had if we counted them.
*We decided that we would use the golden beads to help us. We used the acorns as our unit beads and we started counting. Each child took turns counting out ten acorns and exchanging them for a ten bead. As soon as we had exchanged all of the acorns for tens we found we needed to exchange the tens for hundreds, and ten of the hundreds for a thousand. It turns out hat we had collected 1,347 acorns. We marveled at how many possible trees we had collected just from our outdoor classroom.
*At the end of the day, we thought it was time to return the acorns to our *forest* to help the squirrels and chipmunks have food for the winter. We will watch and see how many of the 1,347 acorns turn into great oak trees.
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