SWI & Science Club

April has been a robust month for SWI professional development offerings, and I've taken up several! It is always a thrill for me to continue my training.

Etymology VIII: Westward Ho! New English Words from the New World
Gina Cooke & Doug Harper
April 3, 4, 5

"How to Teach 'Sight Words': What You Never Learned in Teacher Training"
Mary McBride & Ellen Meyer
April 6, 7, 8

SWI for Early Readers
Rebecca Loveless
April 16, 23, 30 & May 7, 14

Of course, in addition to being a student I'm also a teacher. Here were some of our activities in this week's Special subjects:

Friday, April 17 - SWI

• discuss results of the SWI Challenge for families:

  Which of these words does NOT belong in this group, and why?

  1. wring
  2. wrist
  3. wrench
  4. wrong
  5. wrap
  6. wreck
  7. writhe
  8. wreath
  9. wrestle
  10. worm
• investigate < granola > (a very young word - 1967)
• investigate < dandelion > (a very old word - from PIE *dent)
• use Mini Matrix-Maker to make a matrix for < dent >
  Dent + de + lion
  in + Dent
  Dent + ist
  Dent + al
  tri + Dent
  Dent + ure

UPDATE: The day after teaching this I woke up to a blog post from Mountain Rose Herbs about the Dandelion, complete with a recipe for a wildcrafted Dandelion Maple Syrup Cake with Buttercream Icing! Mmmmm. It sounds delicious and is beyond-perfect timing. Natalie and Zac are going to make it for me today as my birthday cake!

SWI questions also came up in our regular academic classes this week.

This always happens!

Once you start thinking of words as having a structure that makes sense, you see patterns everywhere. In our 4 Operations: Math Gnomes block, I wondered aloud if < array > (as in multiplication) is related to < arrange >.

In our Science Club exploration of Light -- and a discussion of how the Ancient Greeks used the consistently circular shadow of the Earth as it fell across the Moon during each lunar eclipse to determine that the Earth was round -- a student wondered whether < eclipse > is related to < ellipse >.

SWI (Structured Word Inquiry) applies the scientific method to an investigation of our English orthography system. So, really, when I offer SWI at 2 pm and Science Club at 3 pm, I'm really offering two hours of Science! Making hypotheses! Searching for evidence which would support your hypothesis as well as openly searching for evidence which would falsify it!

Friday, April 17 - Science Club

Prior to Meeting

• "Exploring Light 1" from NEED EnergyWorks student packet
• "Exploring Light 3" from NEED EnergyWorks student packet
• Magic Breaking Pencil
• Disappearing Money
• Design Challenge
  Create Light Patterns with a CD and Paper

During the Meeting

• review the results of student at-home activities
• read How We Learned the Earth is Round by Patricia Lauber and try the experiments mentioned in it

  

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