by Pam Oken-Wright | Jan 17, 2014 | Outdoor Learning, Teacher Research
A cobblestone sidewalk surrounds the perimeter of our Outdoor Classroom. Today, MM went all the way around it, drawing an arrow on each stone. When I asked what was happening, she said, "This is the way to go." When she finished going all the way around, she doubled...
by Pam Oken-Wright | Jan 14, 2014 | Teacher Research
"Martin Luther King's real birthday is in two days," one child recalled. Then someone asked, "Did the man that shot him die, too?" I told her that the man who shot Dr. King went to jail. Before I could tell the children that James Earl Ray died in jail, LW said, "Bad...
by Pam Oken-Wright | Jan 9, 2014 | Teacher Research
In this series of conversations, four- and five-year-olds consider the nature and source of ice. At the beginning of our first conversation, some children posed the theory that ice is frozen water, but others seemed to doubt. It appeared that, to them, to believe...
by Pam Oken-Wright | Jan 2, 2014 | Uncategorized
Over the next several days the children continued to think about where the puddle goes when it evaporates. G articulated her theory in drawing. She explained: The puddles don’t go up in the air. They vibrate, and then they go back to the cloud, and then it rains....
by Pam Oken-Wright | Jan 1, 2014 | Uncategorized
It did not rain for the entire month of September and into October. "Why do we have boots here if it doesn't rain?" one of the children asked. "So we can go puddle stomping if it rains," I replied. Apparently the children kept my response in mind as a promise, for on...