WEDNESDAY, MAY 23

LAST DAY OF SCHOOL AT MS. RACHELLE'S!

HISTORY: learned about calligraphy and practiced some ourselves. they really enjoyed doing this and wanted to do more - would be a good summer project. learned about the Han dynasty and how they were kind and peaceful rulers. the chinese invented paper ( we'll do the paper making project over the summer) and began trading goods with the rest of the world. took the unit assessment - they all aced it! they are disappointed that school is ending :)

SCIENCE: learned about Jacques Couscto and how he invented scuba gear and underwater cameras. visited a website about giant squids - pretty interesting. played a game that reviewed the whole ocean unit - all the questions were the same as those on the assessment on-line and they all answered them correctly.

GREAT YEAR!! HAPPY SUMMER EVERYONE!!

MAY 16, WEDNESDAY

HISTORY - the first emperor of China and the Great Wall. they are fascinated by the Chinese. they all want our army and the rest of the world to tell China to be a democracy. we had a long discussion about how the emperor burned Confucius' writings and that's a sign of bad government because people should have freedom to read what they want. freedom of the press is a hallmark of a free and educated society. david knew that some scholars had copied Confucius' work and buried it (yeah Scott!) and so we have some of his writings still today. they thought the idea a building a wall around the country was pretty silly because we all know that there are ways in, like over the top or to break it down. we looked at a lot of pictures of the wall, how it was constructed and how it's used today. they really are interested in this subject so it might be good to explore from other resources.

SCIENCE - the deep sea and the ocean floor. visit the reading room again for this lesson - it's a really cool exploration in a submersible. they wanted to watch it several times. they still remembered some the ocean life from preschool - angler fish and sea tubes. talked about how the landscape of the ocean floor is similar to the earth's surface. really good lesson

WEDNESDAY, MAY 9

HISTORY - we did lessons 2 and 4 (3 is caligraphy, which i saved for Suzy). they got really into the discussion about silk and how expensive it is and how difficult it was to make. they liked the story. we learned about confucius and his teachings about how to treat people and be peaceful. they were disappointed that the story was not about the fighting of all the princes. i saved one project about confucius to do next week. there is a paper in their folders with one quote from confucius that i wrote - have them memorize this to present to the class. they also need to be able to discuss what the quote means, give an example, etc.

NEXT WED. - I will come over to Ranae's to teach history and science after their music party because i'll still have my appointment on thursday and that will work better for me, if it's ok with Ranae. lets do science lesson 6 - the coral reef - on our own. on thursday next week maybe Ranae can do a history lesson because we need to do 2 a week to finish and they really love doing that all together. let me know.

thanks you guys!