Wild Wacky Weather

Each summer at The Capitol School we have our "Summer Explorations".  These are two week classes for preschool up through middle school.  These classes are not only open to students of our Capitol School family, but they are also opened to the public.  This is a great way for us to get to know other great kids/families that attend other schools.  Most of the classes I taught were the 5-7 year old kids, but I did get really brave a teach some preschool as well!  This year I taught 4 out of the 5 sessions.  My goal was to create a blog post at the end of each 2 week session, but somewhere in the middle of teaching 10 hours a day, taking 2 grad classes, taking the MAT, completing my graduate portfolio AND getting ready for the upcoming school year...well, that didn't happen.  So here it is, the end of summer (actually the last 2 weeks of summer) and I'm finally sitting down to blog about what we did this summer.


The first summer school class was titled (in case you couldn't guess from the title of this blog post) Wild Wacky Weather.  Side note......when I was little (somewhere between ages 7-11) I was scared TERRIFIED of storms......we're talking having a panic attack anytime I heard thunder.....so due to being completely terrified I became interested obsessed with the weather.....now thankfully as an adult I am no longer terrified and/or obsessed with weather.....although James Spann is still my hero and I'm not sure what I will do if/when he retires!  Ok back to Wild Wacky Weather......again I had these grand ideas of the blog about this class taking a day-by-day look as to what we did over the course of the two weeks, but that didn't happen.  And probably due to the fact that I flew in from Tanzania, East Africa on Saturday.....well actually Sunday about 2AM......and then started teaching at 7:30AM on Monday, I didn't take as many pictures as I wanted because let's face it I was pretty much in a jet-lagged fog the first week!

So with those excuses (which I hate making, but they are true) I am just going to post the few pictures that I did take and explain a few of the activities that we did get to do during our class.




This was the bulletin board that I made for this class.  No it isn't fancy or really cute, but it only took me about an hour to make and time was something I didn't really have much of, so it worked!

I can't remember which day we made "sky parfaits", but it was one of the first few days of class.  I found this really cute pin on Pinterest (how did I ever teach without it?!?!).  And with a lot of things, the picture I saw wasn't exactly what ours turned out to look like.......but the kids loved them (all, but the two that didn't eat jello....who doesn't eat jello?) so that's all that mattered to me!

Pinterest version of what a "sky parfait" should look like.

Our version of a "sky parfait".

We began the class by learning about clouds.  The kids had a wonderful time learning about clouds and I was really surprised with what all they were able to remember!  We learned everything from the names of clouds, how they form, at what altitude you find the different clouds, and which type of cloud produces what type of weather.  

One activity that was a really big hit was when we created our own clouds using shaving cream and glue.  The kids had a blast getting messy and when the mixture dried it made this really neat foamy type substance!  

To help us be able to identify different types of clouds we created these "cloud watchers".  We printed off pictures of clouds we found on the internet (with the name of the cloud written on it).....then we glued that onto a square piece of card-stock....and finally cut out a square in the center.  This allowed the students to have a "viewing hole" that they could hold up to a cloud and then find which cloud on the side it most resembled. 

The kids LOVED doing this!  I believe the first day we observed clouds for about 45 minuets!  I also had several parents tell me that they couldn't go anywhere without their child identifying every single cloud they saw!  Anyone who is a teacher knows how much that warmed my heart!

We also learned about rainbows and how they form.  I didn't have a super creative craft for this, but this really simple one turned out to be pretty.

After studying about rainbows we also started working on a weather book.  I got the idea from this great blog called Kindergarten Rocks.  If you teach younger kids or have younger children I recommend you checking out this blog.  There are always cute activities to do with your little ones.  We changed a few of the pages (in the blog the entire class only makes one book, but I had each student create their own book), but for the most part our book turned out like theirs.

One science experiment we did while learning about rain was this simple one.  Each student got a cup filled with water, then we added shaving cream to the top and finally added some food color drops.  We watched as the food color drops made their way through the shaving cream and down into the water.

Side note.....and probably only you teachers will understand why I loved this moment so much.....as I was walking around passing out the food coloring droppers I had a student say this to me: "Miss Box, I noticed that my food color drops went through my cloud and into the water before Timmy's.....is this because Timmy has more shaving cream in his cup than mine?".  I LOVE it when this happens.  So we got to have this wonderful discussion about why it was taking some drops longer than others AND we even applied that to the actual clouds that we see in the sky!!

 When we learned about thunderstorms we created this really cute craft.  The students loved it because they got to play with the shaving cream/glue mixture again!  I got this idea from this great little blog called S.B Creatively

One of the highlights each time I teach this class is getting to go on a field trip to our local TV station.  Mr. Scott, one of our local meteorologists, does such a wonderful job with the kids.  He gave the kids a tour of the studio, showed them how he predicts the weather, and even let them have a spot on the evening news!  In April of 2011 our town was devastated by an EF4 tornado that ripped through the center of our town.  Each and every person in our city was impacted in some way by this storm.  Since that time many children (and adults) have become very afraid of the weather.  Mr. Scott talked with the children about this and helped them develop their own safety plans and learn what they can do to stay safe during bad weather.

Wild Wacky Weather class with meteorologist Mr. Scott.

There are so many more things we did over the two weeks that I'm sure I have forgotten to write about, but those are just some of the highlights.  It was a great two weeks and I think the kids not only had fun, but I think they learned a lot too!

Butterflies take over the Hill/Box Cluster

Today was the day that our butterflies emerged!  The kids were so excited to see the butterflies begin to come out of their chrysalis.  Here are some pictures I was able to snap!

a butterfly that had just emerged from its chrysalis

Mrs. Hill explaining to the students what is happening

They were so excited!

A view from the bottom of the butterfly net looking up

The bottom of the butterfly net.

Mrs. Hill took a few of the butterflies out and placed them on a plant in our room.  Amazingly they stayed there all day!

 They have been such great observers the past few weeks just waiting for this moment!  It was so great to see how excited the kids were! 

Moundville

This year our "year long theme" has been changes.  In October our kids learned about the Native Americans that used to live in Moundville....the kids learned about what life was like back then and what all has changed since then.  During the Moundville Native American Festival we were able to take our class and spend a day at Moundville.  I was so proud of our kids...they did a wonderful job listening to all the presenters and I believe they really learned a lot!

This woman taught us about how to make pottery.

Dr. Hall (one of my former teachers at The Capitol School)

Lantern Festival 2011

This blog post is about something we did back in October......before I even started this blog.....but it was such a cute activity that I couldn't resist writing a blog about it!

Saint Martin's Day is a traditional German holiday that falls on November 11 (you can read more about Saint Martin's Day here).  Since we are an international school and we have students from all over the world we try to have celebrations from each and every culture.

On this Friday we had all the parents and students meet at the school around 5:30.  Every family brought food and we all had a wonderful time talking/eating and getting to know our Hill/Box cluster family.  After we finished eating we all went outside and gathered around a fire pit that our director, Dr. Rountree, brought for us to use.  In the weeks leading up to this the children had worked so hard on creating their lanterns and they turned out adorable!  With help from several of the adults we got all of the childrens' lanterns lit and then we walked around Capitol Park and sang German songs.  It was wonderful to see my students taking part in a tradition from another country and singing songs in another language.  My kids are truly amazing!   Here are some pictures from that night!

And can you believe we had over 20 kids with lit lanterns....not the battery kind....actual fire candles....and not a single person got hurt and nothing caught on fire!  I thought that was an amazing feat in and of itself! 

Tennis

Here at The Capitol School our students are able to have P.E each day.  For our class we break our 23 kiddos into two groups and each group gets 30 minutes of P.E.  Currently our kids are learning how to play tennis.  Our P.E instructor, Coach Moody, is a brave woman to give twelve, 5-7 year olds rackets and tennis balls!!

Here are some pictures Mrs. Hill took of the kids practicing out on Capitol Park.