For the past several weeks we have been working on informational writing. We have talked about the difference between fiction and nonfiction writing throughout the year, and to kick off our informational writing we read several nonfiction texts including Chameleon, Chameleon by Joy Crowley with fantastic photographs by Nic Bishop, and One Tiny Turtle by Nicola Davis. After reading each book we talked about some of the facts that children had learned and they had an opportunity to work on their own nonfiction writing.

This culminated with a project writing about our nature name animals. Children either listened to an adult read a book about their animal or heard a book on iPads (thanks to Eric for preloading books about many of our animals). When they were done I recorded some of the facts that they had learned. Several students had very thoughtful questions that weren't answered in the books, so we did a search to find answers. Children then turned these facts into pages for their books. We completed this project by creating collage covers for the books. They are very excited to bring these home!

For the last two weeks, students have done a great job of using tools safely and responsibly during ECO. Last week we learned about woodpeckers and made woodpecker "beaks" using peelers to whittle sticks.  We used hand drills to start holes in fallen trees and then used hammers to simulate woodpeckers tapping into the trees.  This week we learned about beavers and used hand saws to cut branches from fallen trees (winter logging at our site left an abundance), which we used to create a giant beaver lodge. 

 With about 25 days left in the school year, kindergartners seem more and more like first graders each day. A sure sign that first grade is just around the corner is the abundance of wiggly and missing teeth and the accompanying gaptoothed grins. Whether children have lost many teeth or are just feeling the first hints of a wiggle, this is always a very exciting milestone.

 It was great to finally get back to the forest this week. The winter logging created some major changes at our site, but students embraced the opportunity to clean up a bit, create a new entrance path, and shift our boundaries. One student even discovered a stump with city like natural art, named the New York City stump. We will continue having ECO in the forest every Wednesday through June 5th.

 For the month of April our calendar markers have focused on measurable attributes including length, weight, capacity, and temperature, along with various tools that might be use for measuring each of these. During Number Corner we have practiced identifying attributes that could be measured for specific objects. For example we might measure the length and weight of a glue stick, but probably not the temperature. During math we have measured the lengths and weights of various objects. Children have especially enjoyed measuring each other. While the units we have used to measure these are non-standard (cubes and craft sticks for length, counting bears and pennies for weight) we have talked about the importance of using a uniform unit. We closed the week measuring and comparing our stuffies, which was lots of fun!