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Sneak
A Peek
White Clay Learning Center’s classroom days are busy and continually engage the children in a
variety of complex and high-level thinking activities.
Our unit-themes change throughout the year, but on any given day
during the year you may have seen:
Our Emergent Readers
may be busy reading about, locating and writing world river names in their
dictionaries, then diagramming them on their world maps, making and
measuring their own rivers with Cuisenaire Rods on graph paper.
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or
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They could be collecting and conducting identification tests on
their own sample rocks, writing a story about the adventures of a rock’s life,
or categorizing rocks according to our books.
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Our Young Readers could be examining 19th century books
with plenty of pictures and captions. They will measure the area and perimeter of
several western states, add information
to their Oregon Trail web, and create a topographical
map of the U.S. They will then perform their Oregon Trail Play.
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or
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They could be experimenting with building arches, corbels and domes as well
as analyzing Latin roots, collaborating with teammates designing a Roman
coliseum,
and giving a presentation on Roman life. |
Our intermediate/advanced readers
may be in teams, analyzing our architecture history timeline as they associate
building styles with historical events, drafting a given building’s
dimensions, and creating their own guide books outlining
styles of American architecture.
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or
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They could be examining
and comparing various plant cells, diagramming the parts of a plant,
and giving presentations on medicinal
properties of plants. They may use the extensive botany and
medical literature in our library. During our Russia unit, some of
the students are highlighting new key words in their Peter the Great
packets and adding them to their dictionaries, using contextual
clues. Another group is on the Guggenheim Museum website, analyzing
19th century Russian serf paintings, and answering their essay
questions that accompany them, while a third group is accessing our
atlases and their Russian geography reading, to create a detailed
topographic map of the country. |
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Applying measurement and math skills in a construction project in front of a map of the United States.
(click on image for larger view)
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Phoebe and Ben are collecting data on flood-damaged
regions of Louisiana. |
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Students constructing a boat for a later experiment
on the White Clay Creek. |
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