Jamie Hermance's Class

January 2008
Unit 1 has been hard at work this month! We learned about Martin Luther King, Jr., the snow and quilts. We did many different activities related to each topic.

We went to John Kennedy elementary and discussed Martin Luther King, Jr. with another class. We learned who he was, why he is important and the goals and values he taught. We learned about our similarities and differences through literature and art projects. The classes did an art project in which they shared their wishes and hopes for the future. Many wonderful responses were shared. Some wished that there would be no more fighting and others wished that everyone would get a long. We feel that this project opened the eyes of the students to their diversities and they learned that each human being should be valued.

We had a lot of fun learning about snow. We had five bowls of snow and to each we added salt, cool water, warm water, salt water and nothing. The students had to determine which bowl of snow they thought would melt the fastest and why. Most of us were surprised when we learned which bowl of snow melted the fastest. We would tell you what made the snow melt the fastest, but we would give away the answer to a really fun and educational science experiment!

Quilting has been a new area of interest. We made a square for a quilt together as a class and everyone had a really good time doing it. We learned about all of the pieces that went together to create the whole quilt. We did our own quilt with felt and paper and then decorated them. We also learned about the history of quilts and quilt making.

Next month holds many more new topics to explore and learn about! We hope it will be just as educational and fun as January was!