Art History - Eva Hesse

In my 2025-2026 school year plan, I decided that our February artist would be Eva Hesse. (Here's the complete list of all the artists we've learned about so far.) Here are some resources and my planning notes:

Eva Hesse
1936 - 1970

Eva Hesse: Sculpture

see also Eva Hesse

also

Eva Hesse documentary (2016)
for teacher background
FREE with a Kino Film Collection one week trial

if you're interested in Sol LeWitt's entire letter to Eva Hesse, it is here, performed by Benedict Cumberbatch (this is NOT for children)

Eva Hesse on How to Be an Artist

Classroom Resource Sheet: Laocoön, 1965-66 (PDF)
Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College

Study for Sculpture, 1967
National Museum of Women in the Arts

Expanded Expansion, 1969

The Afterlife of Eva Hesse’s “Expanded Expansion”
Guggenheim Museum

These Sculptures Changed What Art Could Be, Then Changed Themselves
The New York Times - Jul 19, 2024

The Encyclopedia of Artists

volume 3

---

week of Feb 2:

Wed

quick overview of Eva Hesse's life (I didn't show any of her art)

open-ended unconventional materials & texture exploration

we called this game "Factory Trash Pile"

I set out the following for them to explore:

clear contact paper
onion skins
balls of yarn
pile of yarn & wool scraps
metal shower curtain rings
Cheerios
bubble wrap
dot matrix printer paper edging
construction paper
origami cranes
pens / pencils / markers
kitchen countertop samples
plastic Easter eggs
colored cardstock with words (old Montessori grammar work)

they were allowed to do whatever they wanted with these materials; one child immediately opened up all the pens to take the springs out!

Thu

read from Eva Hesse on How to Be an Artist

Lesson #1: If you’re stuck, try new materials and methods

Lesson #2: Embrace the absurd

Lesson #3: Explore your materials with spontaneity

Lesson #4: Practice fearlessness

week of Feb 9:

Mon

see what the children recall about Eva Hesse's life

listen to excerpt of Sol LeWitt's letter (NOT the whole letter)
from 2:04 to 3:30

make bad art!
old file folders that are headed for the recycling bin
and cheap art supplies (Crayola crayons & markers)

Tue

activity inspired by Laocoön (1965-66)
watch an excerpt from The French Taunt from Monty Python
(3:40 to 6:18)

explain the Trojan War and read the story of Laocoön from
"A Fairy-Tale War," chapter 11 of A Child's History of the World by V.M. Hillyer

ask children to imagine Eva Hesse's Laocoön sculpture,
then show them and read from the Visual Analysis (PDF)

opposites:
geometric vs. organic
uprightness vs. parasitic dragging downward

explore these opposites by creating an upright sculpture
using a vintage building supply
then compare the effect of evoking snakes with finger knitted lengths of yarn versus dot matrix printer paper edging

Thu

activity inspired by Hang Up (1966)
look at the following from Eva Hesse, pp.166-175:

Tomorrow's Apples (5 in White) (1965)

2 in 1 (1965)

C-Clamp Blues (1965)

Up the Down Road (1965)

Eighter from Decatur (1965)

Top Spot (1965)

Untitled (1965)

Hang Up (1966)


how can you define "absurd" in one word?

read from Eva Hesse, p.59

use old coat hangers and try to create absurd work that breaks out of the frame, extending into the surrounding space



we thought it would be really fun to use a coat hanger as the frame because then you could "Hang Up" your sculpture!

week of Feb 16:

Mon

activity inspired by Study for Sculpture (1967)

Thu

activity inspired by Repetition Nineteen III (1968)

watch video about The Afterlife of Eva Hesse’s “Expanded Expansion”

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Steam Engine Notes

We are wrapping up the first half of Local Geography & History (Southern Illinois) with a look at the importance of the railroad. In the second half, which I am combining with Personal Narratives, we will look at Industry.

Week One - Illinois State Symbols, Glaciers & Dinosaur Fossils

Week Two - Rivers & Drainage Basins, New Madrid Seismic Zone

Week Three - Mound Builders, Louisiana Purchase, Lewis & Clark

Week Four - Founding of Carbondale, Illinois Central Railroad

The railroad has been an interesting topic for kids. After reading portions of Illinois Trails & Traces: Portraits and Stories along the State’s Historic Routes (pp.171-179 and also the profile of Milton McDaniel), the children had lots of questions about how steam locomotives work. How did towns spring up along the train routes, and why did the trains specifically need water towers?

Today we are watching sections of this video on how a steam engine works, reading Locomotive by Brian Floca, and looking at a sheet of stamps for the 150 year anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.

just a reminder that the lines shown snaking across the country are telegraph lines, not telephone lines

here are my notes on teaching Morse Code to children

Below I have organized my notes as to the sections of the steam locomotive video that I thought would be most accessible for ages 8-11. I am also starting by reminding the class that the Big Boy was the world’s largest and most powerful steam train! It is much larger than the locomotive in Locomotive, but the mechanisms of the steam engine are largely the same.

Begin video at 0:00

STOP after
“There’s a steam dome at the top where steam collects and flows out of the boiler.”

JUMP to 7:05

STOP after
“Water flowing into the boiler must be pumped or injected in to overcome boiler pressure.”

JUMP to 10:00

STOP after
“The piston and valve continue their synchronized movements, exchanging fresh superheated steam for spent exhaust, as the train chuffs down the track.”

JUMP to 25:15

STOP after
“It’s covered with critical instruments, gauges, knobs, and more.”

JUMP to 33:05 and watch to the end

We are extremely excited to have Daniel Overturf -- the photographer for Illinois Trails & Traces: Portraits and Stories along the State’s Historic Routes -- come in as a special guest on Monday to talk about Illinois rail history more with the children, and explain how the author and he organized all of this extensive information (which includes railroads but also land travel in Illinois more generally) into a 10 chapter book! Note: Their previous book together, A River Through Illinois, covered the main Illinois waterway.

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Grapefruit

Yoko Ono
1933 -

Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings by Yoko Ono

(a collection of instruction pieces from 1961-1964)

We read through this yesterday and loved so many of them!!! But these are the ones that the children feel are most doable in the school environment:

TAPE PIECE I

Stone Piece

Take the sound of the stone aging.

TAPE PIECE II

Room Piece

Take the sound of the room breathing.

1) at dawn
2) in the morning
3) in the afternoon
4) in the evening
5) before dawn

Bottle the smell of the room of that particular hour as well.

TAPE PIECE III

Snow Piece

Take a tape of the sound of the snow falling.
This should be done in the evening.
Do not listen to the tape.
Cut it and use it as strings to tie gifts with.

TAPE PIECE IV

Moving Piece

Take a tape of the sound of the stars moving.
Do not listen to the tape.
Cut it and give it out to the people on the street.
Or you may sell it for a moderate price.

COLLECTING PIECE

Collect sounds in your mind that you have overheard through the week. Repeat them in your mind in different orders one afternoon.

BEAT PIECE

Listen to a heart beat.

SNOW PIECE

Think that snow is falling.
Think that snow is falling everywhere all the time.
When you talk with a person, think that snow is falling between you and on the person.
Stop conversing when you think the person is covered by snow.

PAINTING FOR THE WIND

Cut a hole in a bag filled with seeds of any kind and place the bag where there is wind.

SHADOW PIECE

Put your shadows together until they become one.

PAINTING TO SHAKE HANDS
(painting for cowards)

Drill a hole in a canvas and put your hand out from behind.
Receive your guests in that position.
Shake hands and converse with hands.

PAINTING TO BE CONSTRUCTED IN YOUR HEAD

Observe three paintings carefully.
Mix them well in your head.

PEA PIECE

Carry a bag of peas.
Leave a pea wherever you go.

CONVERSATION PIECE

Bandage any part of your body.
If people ask about it, make a story and tell.
If people do not ask about it, draw their attention to it and tell.
If people forget about it, remind them of it and keep telling.
Do not talk about anything else.

CLOUD PIECE

Imagine the clouds dripping.
Dig a hole in your garden to put them in.

LAUNDRY PIECE

In entertaining your guests, bring out your laundry of the day and explain to them about each item. How and when it became dirty and why, etc.

MASK PIECE

Wear a blank mask.
Ask people to put in wrinkles, dimples, eyes, mouth, etc. as you go.

NAME PIECE

Change your name by the period of your age.
By the year.
By the day.
By occasions.
By the color of your dress.

NUMBER PIECE I

Count all the words in the book instead of reading them.

NUMBER PIECE II

Replace nouns in the book with numbers and read.
Replace adjectives in the book with numbers and read.
Replace all the words in the book with numbers and read.

DOOR PIECE

Make a tiny door to get in and out so that you have to bend and squeeze each time you get in... this will make you aware of your size and about getting in and out.

WATCH

Draw a large circle in the sky.
Let us know the diameter of the circle (guess), direction and the color of the sky you were watching and the duration of your watching experience.

COUNT

Count the clouds.
Name them.

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Math Game - Divvy Up

Right now the older students are working on Long Division. In the Montessori math progression, this is usually done first with the Golden Beads, then with the Stamp Game, and finally with the Racks & Tubes.

Now we are doing it with abstraction (which I refer to as simply using logic).

Once you've done the Racks & Tubes, the algorithm makes so much sense!

Rather than wait until the children had mastered it all to introduce a Long Division game, I went straight into a game. The whole class played against me! That incentivized them to learn the steps in the algorithm more quickly, in order to make predictions and decide on a winning strategy.

Here is the game:

click on image to enlarge

I found this loose paper in my teacher stash, but I don't know what book I pulled it out of. Sorry!

Divvy Up is a cousin to the Dice Game, which we use every year to reinforce Place Value. And the children have loved it. You can play this game with either a six-sided or ten-sided die. I think 10 is more fun. However, I asked the children if a zero came up to just re-roll. I didn't want to chance a zero in the divisor (which is undefined).

Tips: Because it is too easy to end up with the exact same problem when using a two digit dividend, I let them use a three digit or four digit dividend. And I HIGHLY recommend having children do long division on graph paper to help keep the place value lined up. I like these math journals:

Tomorrow's math game: Remainders Wanted!

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Knitted Doll (Grade 4)

It's very cold and snowy here today, so I finally finished up my knitted doll!

In my Handwork Teacher Training, this was suggested as a third grade project, but I think it works really well in grade 4 as part of the Zoology block (to go with chapter 1 of Kovacs). A doll + wardrobe are the final patterns in A First Book of Knitting for Children, but I particularly like this one because it encourages children to make their dolls unique.

It also goes spectacularly well with the Kovacs chapter, and I really noticed the children looking at human proportions to see how big to make the head and how long to make the arms.

Thank you to Nicole for this "pattern" and the lovely wording!

you will need worsted weight yarn in a variety of colors (shoe color, clothing colors, skin color, hair color, accessory colors) and corresponding knitting needles

"I can't give you a pattern for this because people are different sizes"

"we come in all different colors and so do our dolls”

"we come in all different sizes and so do our dolls”

you will begin at one of the doll’s feet

cast on 12 stitches

knit until the leg is as long as you would like, then cast on for a second

knit second leg, then join them by knitting across all rows

knit torso as long as you want it to be

knit the head smaller — fewer stitches, fewer rows — than you did the torso

k2tog across the entire row, then use the gathering stitch to complete the head

now you will make two arms

cast on 10 stitches for arms in shirt color

knit until the arm is as long as you would like, switch to hand color at end of arm and then use the gathering stitch to complete the arm

notes:

for a smaller doll, cast on 10 instead of 12 stitches for the legs (in which case use 8 stitches instead of 10 stitches for the arms)

for a variety of textures, you could use garter stitch for skin but use stockinette stitch (knit a row, purl a row) for the shoes and clothing

the doll can be made so that he/she is completely clothed already (for slower knitters) OR made with skin and undergarments like tights/undies and then you can have fun inventing and knitting separate clothing and accessories

do NOT make the doll all in skin color such that he/she is naked

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Poisonous or Venomous?

Maybe you already know that Seth Meyers has spent a lot of time on this. But just recently, a Jackal wrote in with the best explanation I've ever heard... and since it's good to know when teaching Zoology (grade 4) and Botany (grade 5), I thought I would share it!

If you bite it and you die, it's poisonous.

If it bites you and you die, it's venomous.

Another tip for poisonous is to think about Snow White and the apple.

And for venomous, someone pointed out that the letter V looks like fangs!

the poisoned apple for Snow White
(I needle-felted this back in April 2016)

Here Comes the Sun

We began our new Philosophy topic, Happiness, yesterday by listening to three versions of this song:

The Beatles

Richie Havens

Nina Simone

Many thanks to Marietta McCarty for this fun way to introduce the topic!

Next, we used Marietta's ideas from Little Big Minds to frame our discussion.

I began by having the children define Happiness by drawing a picture (no words) in their Philosophy journals. Here are some notes from our chat:

What is happiness?

it's an emotion that makes you feel good inside

I drew a birthday party

for me, there's a specific thing I do that makes me feel happy inside: swimming in the lake with my dad in the summer when it's hot

it makes me feel warm inside

What are the ingredients of a happy life?

love

excitement

freedom

being able to have fun, and not have a million things to do and not have time to have fun... fun & freedom

you also need to take care of your body

kindness, joy, peacefulness

What is the difference between pleasure and happiness?

I have another ingredient for having a good life. Sometimes you have to do chores because you don't want your sink to get piled with dirty dishes. You don't have this big weight on your body every time you go into the kitchen.

Pleasure is doing something that you like. Happiness is also doing something that you like. I don't know...

When you eat really delicious chocolate. It doesn't make me happy but it's pleasurable.

Pleasure comes when you do things. But you don't really have to be doing anything to feel happy. It's more passive.

Do you think that everyone in the world can be happy?

They can but they usually aren't. Some people don't accept it.

Some people don't give it, and they don't let the people around them have happiness. But there's enough room for everybody to have happiness.

It's possible, if we have a better government. You could be starving, and then you wouldn't be happy, but if you had a good government then they would give you charity funds which would give you food.

Sometimes I think there's different kinds of happiness. The feeling of having food and knowing you can just have food. And then, even if you don't have food, you can still in a way be happy since there's public parks. You could probably play with other children.

That feeling is called security. Is security a kind of happiness?

Yes, in its own way.

Do you need security in order to feel happiness?

There are people who are secure who are not happy. There are people who are not secure who make the best of their situation. It seems like it has a lot to do with your mindset, whether or not you allow yourself to feel happy or not. Some people have the possibility but things get in the way.

Can you make yourself be happy? What shifts a bad day for you?

If I read a really good book or find a new way to get to the top of the tree.

If I have a really bad day, if it's sunny and windy and warm, I just go outside.

The most recent horrible days I've had are because I'm bored. The thing that turns that around for me is a really long and big project that's really complicated but I can do it without getting frustrated. I can keep having ideas. I have something to do that I love.

Usually it's when I'm really bored and then I get really angry, so I go outside. I read a book. Get a picnic blanket and I just lay down on the picnic blanket and read the book.

Do people think that there's a thing to buy that will make them happy?

When I buy something like a new pair of shoes, I get my heart set on it being amazing and so wonderful. And then when it isn't amazing or so wonderful, then I'm really disappointed. And I hate that. So I've been working on trying to get my heart not set on things. But now I have my heart set on not having my heart set on things.

[ Then I introduced the idea of Stoicism. ]

Some philosophers in the past had the idea, and I want to see what you guys think about it, that the key to happiness just taking everything as it comes very calmly. You wouldn't have to experience deep sadness or disappointment, but you also then wouldn't be able to get really excited and joyful when the good things happened. You are the mountain, and your feelings are the weather. It just comes and goes. It doesn't matter. So don't get caught up in it.

If you just had that steady calm, would that be happiness?

I think that a perfect life would have some lows but that would allow us to have highs too. If you don't clean your house and do chores, then you'll just be always upset. So you have to do some uncomfortable things to have the high things. Once you clean your house, you're proud of yourself and then you can do other things because now you can actually get to your closet. In order to have happiness or excitement, you also have to do the bad things.

I don't believe that. With the highs, come the lows. I personally like to be able to be really excited. I think it's worth it to be disappointed to have those, "yes, I'm so excited!" moments. Just because you might not like the "uh" moments, is it really worth it to give up the fun ones too?

But you can't really sustain a level of excitement. Those high highs don't last very long.

Is something that comes and goes so quickly really real?

You could have a fly that was born yesterday and dies tomorrow, that comes and goes really quickly but it's still real.

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-t Suffix

I often choose our spelling words based on mistakes I find in the childrens' rough drafts, but sometimes an error inspires an SWI investigation instead!

Today I edited a paper that spelled "asked" as "askt." We went over the word sum together (ask + ed ---> asked) but it also got me thinking.

When is < -t > the correct suffix?

So this morning for SWI we did an investigation to see what words the children could think of, and discover whether we could find any patterns.

sleep / slept

keep / kept

weep / wept

sweep / swept

creep / crept

kneel / knelt

mean / meant

leap / leapt

deal / dealt

dream / dreamt

learn / learnt

smell / smelt

spell / spelt

spoil / spoilt

We did notice that for most of these words, the initial vowel sound is long and then it changes to short when the base is shortened and < -t > is added. Also, for all of these words -- except learn, smell, spell, and spoil -- that initial vowel sound is a long e.

We realized that when this suffix is added to a word with the < ea > digraph, the < ea > spelling is preserved.

We also recognized that < -ed > is becoming a more acceptable suffix for all of these words except sleep and keep (for ee) and mean (for ea).

Now the children want to keep track of the publication dates on books that are using the newer form, so we can see when this cultural shift happened. (Besides old books, I do find some of these spellings are more common in British English.) And why are those few specific words resisting the change?

Examples:

Winter poem by Judith Nicholls
crept

A Considerable Speck poem by Robert Frost
smelt, dealt, crept, swept, slept

found in Poetry of Earth edited by Adrienne Adams, p.23

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Art History - Yoko Ono

In my 2025-2026 school year plan, I decided that our January artist study would be Yoko Ono. (Here's the complete list of all the artists we've learned about so far.) So now let's dive into some resources and my planning notes:

Yoko Ono
1933 -

also

Yoko Ono page at Wikipedia

Yoko Ono page at tate.org.uk

articles at the New York Times

Is the Yokossance Finally Here?
Apr 8, 2025

John Lennon Came to My School When I Was 8. Or Did I Imagine It?
Jan 21, 2025

Following Yoko Ono’s Anarchic Instructions
Feb 15, 2024

Yoko Ono: One Woman Show: 1960–1971
MoMA (includes recordings of her voice)

Painting To Be Stepped On, 1960-61

Instructions for Paintings, 1961-62

Touch Poem for Group of People, 1963

Bag Piece, 1964

Cut Piece, 1964

Grapefruit, 1964

Morning Piece, 1964-65

Apple, 1966

Half-a-Room, 1967

Plastic Ono Band, 1968

Bed-In, 1969

A Box of Smile, 1984

To See the Sky, 2015

"Forget It"

All About Yoko Ono's Husbands: Toshi Ichiyanagi, Anthony Cox and John Lennon

---

week of Jan 5:

Mon

Philosophy discussion, Is It Music?

here are my notes from this lesson in 2016, where I wrote down some of the children's comments... they are wonderful to read!

week of Jan 12:

Mon

look more closely at the instructions on the wall behind Yoko Ono at the start of that video... and consider whether we were completely misunderstanding her performance... it's not Music; it's Art
”Scream. 1. against the wind 2. against the wall 3. against the sky”

read blog post From a Whisper to a Scream: Following Yoko Ono’s Instructions

discuss the idea of "instruction pieces" as art

decide to turn the dogwood tree into a Wish Tree and invite parents, friends, and neighbors to add wishes to it

“Make a wish. Write it down on a piece of paper. Fold it and tie it around a branch of the wish tree. Ask your friend to do the same. Keep wishing.”

Yoko Ono is our January artist because I put them in order of birth... but it turns out very well to do a Wish Tree at the start of a new year!

"Wish Tree" (digital version)

Thu

read Wish: Wishing Traditions Around the World by Roseanne Thong


set up our Wish Tree

print and cut 2 inch x 1 1/2 inch slips of paper

collect wool yarn, scissors, pencils, and a hole punch

set up a sign by the tree explaining the project

put all of the supplies in a cookie tin

write the first wishes!

week of Jan 19:

Thu

Yoko Ono: One Woman Show: 1960–1971
MoMA (includes recordings of her voice)

listen to her voice first, then look at the artwork

Painting To Be Stepped On, 1960-61

Touch Poem for Group of People, 1963

Bag Piece, 1964

Cut Piece, 1964

look at the artwork first, then listen to her voice

Morning Piece, 1964-65

Apple, 1966

Half-a-Room, 1967


more ideas for exploring Bag Piece:

sit quietly inside a navy blue silk sleeping bag liner

read Nine Months: Before a Baby Is Born by Miranda Paul

does the bag
help you notice the passage of time and the changes you go through

read I Just Am: A Story of Down Syndrome Awareness and Tolerance

does the bag
strip away your exterior and then let you talk with people soul to soul

week of Jan 26:

Tue

read excerpts from Grapefruit and choose the ones we'd like to do

Wed

perform Name Piece by calling everyone by the color of their clothing

Thu

read Plink Plink Plink by Byrd Baylor



brainstorm all the sounds you hear in a day

perform Collecting Piece

perform Beat Piece (stethoscope)

perform Shadow Piece (sheet of white paper on the floor)

perform Mask Piece (blank paper mache masks, markers)

perform Conversation Piece (large bandage)

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Illinois Exotic Species Coloring Book

Looking through my resources for the Southern Illinois block (grade 4 Local Geography, History & Industry), I came across this lovely coloring book.

Printed on nice heavy card, these beautiful illustrations come with helpful information on the back. Some of them would work very well in other blocks too, such as "Night Crawler" for Zoology, "Queen Anne's Lace" for Botany, or "Teasel" for Fibers & Clothing (teasers were an early tool used to card wool).

Here is the complete list:

Dame's Rocket

Eurasian Watermilfoil

Rusty Crayfish

Buckthorn

Japanese Beetle

Musk Thistle

Ruffe

Round Goby

German Yellowjacket

European Starling

Rock Dove

House Sparrow

Reed Canary Grass

Gypsy Moth

Chinese Mantis

Goldfish

Common Carp

Daphnia

Zebra Mussel

Asian Tiger Mosquito

Mute Swam

Multiflora Rose

Night Crawler

Kudzu

Asian Longhorned Beetle

Teasel

Garlic Mustard

Purple Loosestrife

Honey Bee

Wild Parsnip

Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle

Queen Anne's Lace

Monk Parakeet

European Corn Borer

Norway Rat

House Mouse

Ring-necked Pheasant

The book's introduction clarifies the difference between an exotic species and an invasive species.

Written by Michelle Garland, Carolyn P. Nixon, and Philip L. Nixon
Illustrated by Carolyn P. Nixon and Loren Kirkwood

Infinity Street

Just realized that I needed to write one thing down before I returned all my Nonny Hogrogian books and started work on Art History plans for Yoko Ono.

The Cat's Midsummer Jamboree by David Kherdian

And this has to do with teaching place value in math. Waldorf does this in 2nd grade and I -- because I'm also trained in Montessori -- use the Montessori color coded materials for place value in my Waldorf classroom.

Including the Infinity Street lesson!

from the simple family... all the way up to septillion

If this lesson is new to you, start here:

Introducing the Equals Sign ("Is the Same As") and Infinity
Jul 2020

How I Teach Place Value
Sep 2020

A Distraction of Prefixes
Dec 2024

I use Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin by Lloyd Moss for an introduction to the names of the higher families (trio, quartet, quintet, sextet, septet, octet, nonet).

Looking at musical terms is especially helpful for clarifying that the base is actually < sext > and not < sex > when representing six!

The Cat's Midsummer Jamboree could also be used in this way, and may be a little more thought-provoking. The cat begins by playing his music alone. As each animal joins him, the group grows and gets a new name.

cat with a mandolin

+ toad with a harmonica - duet

+ fox with a flute - trio

+ badger with a drum - quartet

+ skunk with a violin - quintet

+ goose with a bassoon - sextet

When they encounter a raccoon playing an accordion, the group grows larger once more. But David Kherdian stops using mathematical terms:

"The cat called up, 'Come with us, and we will have a jamboree.'"

It would be interesting to say to the children, instead of a jamboree, what should they call their group to show that it now has seven members?

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Puddle Question: Class Pets

Today we did a very interesting statistics Puddle Question. (Here is all the information on Science Puddle Questions and Math Puddle Questions.)

This prompt is from the Grade 3 Math book.

I was really interested to see the children's mathematical thinking, ie. how well they were able to collect, represent, and interpret data.

But what struck me the most was their philosophical thinking: how flexible they were with the concept of "pet" and how sensitively they responded to a child who was pet-less due to the recent death of her cat.

Of course then I realized that, because they opened the concept of "pet" up so far, they had much more complex data to represent in their reports... which actually did strengthen their mathematical thinking in the long run!

To begin the activity, you are supposed to give each child an index card.

The teacher guide then says to have the students write their current pet(s) "or the words no pets" on their card.

Each of the children then reads aloud what they put on their cards while the other students take notes, and then all of the index cards are displayed for people to refer back to while they put their report together.

The first question that came up was pet sitting. One child is pet sitting two fish and a snail for her neighbor. Does this count as a pet? We decided yes, but I noted that the children may need to find a way to represent in their data that those pets do not actually belong to that family.

The second question that came up was pets that had passed away. The teacher guide specifically says "current pets" so I said no.

Then the little girl who was (to an adult) pet-less raised her hand and asked about "non-living" pets such as a special stuffed animal. I remembered having a pet stick as a child. And then someone else asked about imaginary pets. Ultimately, I decided, "if it's a pet to you, write it down on your card."

Zac, age 1, finding a really great stick!

My son Zac, now age 10, wrote down that he had three pets. One rabbit (living), one rock (non-living), and one bird (imaginary). I had no idea he had an imaginary pet bird.

Allowing that little girl to have a pet crayon instead of a dead cat was so warm and kind on the part of the class! And then the children had all sorts of different sections and color coding and keys on their charts and graphs, in order to represent the more complex categories of information.

I have noticed that because we encourage open-ended thinking here, they find a lot of traditional assignments to be too confining. Here someone very calmly decided to give herself a 3 1/2 on the rubric!

We also used this activity as a chance to talk about drawing conclusions, and I read Poofy Loves Company by Nancy Winslow Parker at snack time.

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