Photos - The Story of Clocks week 1

As we wrap up The Story of Clocks & Calendars with our culminating field trip on Mon Nov 6, here's a look back at the second part of this block.

During the week of Oct 16, the older children began their study of Clocks. The whole group continued to make art for the 2024 Homemade Calendar Project and finished up their entries for the Booktacular Pumpkin Decorating Contest. We celebrated two birthdays and had a visit with a special guest (Ms. Pam came in to talk about her trip to Italy, Montenegro, and Croatia).

The children also enjoyed the first of two juggling lessons! Thank you so much to Halbert and Kamea for providing juggling materials and expertise.

Some background information that may be useful:

Resources for Teaching About Clocks blog post

Science Club: Pumpkin Racers blog post

Art History: Louise Bourgeois blog post

We continued to read The Burgess Book of Nature Lore by Thornton W. Burgess at lunchtime. Our snacktime picture books this week were Monarch and Milkweed by Helen Frost (milkweed pod), The Sun's Day by Mordicai Gerstein and Night Shift by Jesse Hartland (hours of the day), and The Watermelon Seed by Greg Pizzoli (calendar art). We also did an experiment about the sun's path from Anno's Sundial by Mitsumasa Anno and learned about water clocks in The Elephant from Baghdad by Mary Tavener Holmes.

Here are some photos from week 7:

using the Colored Bead Bars to calculate your points in Pick Up Sticks

we also use the Colored Bead Bars in the Montessori Teaching Clock

light blue in Montessori is always skip counts of 5

this clock also incorporates the red Fraction material
to show the whole, half, and quarter hours

for some children, knitting is their absolute favorite work

this child is so proud of how her lamb pattern is coming along

a box of clean carded wool for stuffing

the children sew and stuff their animals very carefully

a lamb is born!

reviewing the story of the months of the year, and adding it to the MLB

we get out the Fraction material again to explain Leap Day

mancala

calendar artwork for October

the children finish up their pumpkins for the Booktacular Pumpkin Decorating contest and they are very proud! here's Golem from The Hobbit

the children also carefully filled out the paper entry forms

they've thought of every detail, down to the just-right color of wire whiskers

and I searched for a long time for the perfect brown witch's hat to become The Sorting Hat

Monday afternoon Zac and I dropped all the pumpkins off at the library!

an analog clock for the classroom wall

the ONLY way for your child to feel this skill is important is to remove all digital clocks (and Siri and Alexa)

a visit from Ms. Pam

another lamb is born!!

dynamic addition with three addends with the Stamp Game

students work in small groups to try to create their own timers
(three teams used water and three teams used rice)

after writing up a sketch of their design and a materials list,
I provided them with their supplies

using the second hand on the clock to time their timers

a juggling lesson outside on a beautiful day

I just love the happy expressions on their faces!

click on any photo to enlarge it and scroll through them

our list of goals for Thursday

using the lightbox for our "watermelon" art

the children took these photos and now they are tracing them onto watercolor paper and turning them into paintings

the Checker Board for long multiplication

the Racks & Tubes for long division

Zac brings down a paddleboat to help us better understand the paddle wheel mechanism in Charlemagne's water clock

we try a candle experiment to better understand King Alfred's time candles

building a second round of Pumpkin Racer prototypes in Science Club

luckily I have a slanted driveway that we can use to test our designs!

after all our talk of clocks & gears, Zac is thrilled to discover gears in a mechanism at the Co-op! he insists that I take a picture

many of the students in our homeschool group met up at Education Day at Fort Massac on Friday

the pewterer

the blacksmith

the tinsmith

the surgeon

Zac tries on a fur at a display of pelts

we also stop by the Visitor Center

a huge blacksmith's bellows

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