During ECO the last two weeks, children worked in teams to begin building a structure that could keep a cardboard kid warm and dry.  We will check on them next week to see how they fared through the rain and snow!

We continued with the building theme on Wednesday afternoon, this time working in teams to build with four different materials:  cups, keva blocks, cubes, and geo-blocks.  This gave children an opportunity to consider the differences among the materials and effective strategies for building with each one.

On Thursday, we again worked in teams to build houses strong enough to withstand the blowing of a big bad wolf.  Each group was given a bag with either toothpicks, craft sticks, or foam bricks, along with clay and glue.  I will let your child tell you how we tested the strength of each house!

In the midst of all of this team work we had a very insightful class discussion about what makes a good team member.  What kind of person do we hope to have on our team when we are working in a group?  Children said they would like someone who is kind, someone who is willing to listen to and consider everyone's ideas.  They also appreciate teammates who are helpful and "don't wreck other people's work"- we decided we could call this respectful.  Finally they said they want somebody who will stay focused,  do the work, and not give up- someone who is engaged and has perseverance.  We then considered which of these qualities we might have, and which ones we could try to work on so we can all be good team members.

A critical part of our morning meeting each day is the greeting.  We have a variety of greetings in our repertoire, but I think the hands down favorite is the shoe greeting.  I will let your child describe this to you.

Another essential and much anticipated part of our meeting is sharing.  This is a great opportunity for children to practice speaking with a loud, clear, voice using details to describe the share. At the same time, the rest of the class is practicing really listening by sitting quietly, looking at the speaker, thinking about what the speaker is saying and trying to think of thoughtful comments or questions about the share.   Children who share may call on three people to ask a question or make a comment.  We are working on keeping our questions or comments specific and  focused on the share (it's very easy even for adults to make a comment that shifts the focus to us, rather than keeping it on the speaker).  Children are welcome to share objects or do a telling share, something I am particularly fond of as this requires slightly sharper listening skills while we make a picture in our minds.  I have not assigned specific share days, but children are limited to one share per week.

On Friday we did our first structure, function, and design exploration.  We began by reading Jack and the Beanstalk.  Children drew Jack's beanstalk and we talked about its function for Jack.  We also looked carefully at its structure, noticing what characteristics made it particularly useful for climbing. Next students were introduced to their challenge- using 10 pipe cleaners (and nothing else) they needed to build the tallest bean stalk they could.  Before they began building they had an opportunity to ask questions that might help with their understanding of the challenge.  Some questions were, "How will we make it stand up?" and "How can we put the pipe cleaners together?"  We had a few minutes to brainstorm around these questions and then children sketched ideas for their own beanstalks.  Finally, they were given time to build.  This was a great opportunity to work through frustration with problem solving and perseverance!

We had another beautiful ECO day on Wednesday.  We worked in teams to create leaf art.  Before we began we talked about the importance of listening to everyone's idea, working as a team,  and compromising to make one creation as a group.  Back at school we read the book Leaf Man by Lois Elhert and  everyone had an opportunity to make an individual leaf picture as well.

At various times throughout the last several weeks we have had the opportunity to work with Eddie Merma and Palo Coleman as part of our artist residency.  The focus of this years residency was building and design.  With Eddie we helped in the construction of a play hive that will eventually be placed on the Mad River Path.  With Palo we used bamboo to help create a balancing bridge and climbing structure.  Children enjoyed being part of the building process and the opportunity to explore using tools, and they especially seemed to enjoy playing on and in the new creations!  This was a perfect segue into our first Project Lead the Way science unit which is Structure and Function:  Exploring Design.