Leaf Man Begins...

 

 

Cian counts sixteen friends in our circle.  Alex is missing.  We wish her well!  He writes “S” on our calendar for science.

Click HERE for photos of our gathering adventures!

 

T:	Today, we are going to start our conversation by looking at our weather. What do you notice about the numbers on here?
Caroline:	They are different. I see 7 and 2.
T:	72!  Look at all these shorts and short sleeve shirts! Take a look at the next few days… is 6 bigger or smaller than 7? Look at what’s happening! The temperature is getting smaller! What happens when the temperature gets smaller? It gets colder! Miss Kopp and I had plans to do a very important project next week, but it is supposed to be rainy and chilly. This project is all about gathering natural material from our campus. We thought today would be the perfect day to gather materials. Yesterday, our full-day friends began collecting some material. If you were here all day yesterday, can you share some of the things you collected?
Gwen:	I put pokey balls in my basket.          T: Yes! They are actually called sweet gum fruit.
Troy:	Lots of cool stuff. Like cool leaves.
Ashton:	Pinecones and cool leaves.
Forest:	I found pinecones.
T:	We found stuff outside that might be ruined in the rain. After science, we are going to gather some natural materials for this special project. We call it the Leaf Man project. It is inspired by a book called Leaf Man. What do you notice on the cover of this book? Have you ever looked up at the sky and saw some clouds making a picture? Like a unicorn or a lion?
Andie:	I see a face!
Forest:	I see a pokey ball. It’s the nose.
Daniel:	Acorns! For the eyes!   We began reading the story and students spoke about what pictures they saw the leaves making on each page…
Caroline:	It kind of looks like a seahorse.
Naomi:	It looks like a fish.
Ashton:	Butterflies! A heart. They are heart leaves.
Naomi:	Birds!
T:	So, yesterday, we collected some things. We found leaves. We found pinecones. We found some cornstalk pieces. We found sticks. We found “pokey balls” otherwise known as sweet gum fruit. Feel the texture. It’s so pokey! So, we have this pile of leaves and material. There are so many different things in here. Our job, when we collect after science, is to sort this material. What does it mean to sort?
Naomi:	It means put the leaves into one bin and the pinecones in another bin.
Camille:	You like get things and you sort them in all the baskets, and you put them in the right basket.
T:	Camille, if I asked you to sort the pinecones, could you gather all the pinecones in that pile and put them in the basket right there? Hm, what do you think that is…
Naomi:	A pinecone.
T:	Do these look the same? Should we sort the skinny pinecones with the regular pinecones?
T:	Raise your hand if you think we should sort them together or separately… Maybe we should keep them separated since they look a little different. Griffin, could you take this bowl and find all of the skinny pinecones? Nathaniel, could you please sort all of the pokey balls? Quinn, could you take this bowl and collect sticks? Once we sort, we are going to make ourselves out of the material. Just like the Leaf Man!
Forest:	We don’t have any acorns!
T:	I know where to find all of the acorns. They are nearby my favorite tree- a ginkgo tree. They are beautiful!