Mr. McGregor's Wall

Our most recent engineering challenge was to design a wall to keep a rabbit out of a garden.  We began with the "Imagine" stage of the design process.  I read the class "The Story of Peter Rabbit" and we talked about the characters and events in the literature.  We had a visit at school from "Ruffles" the rabbit so everyone could see a rabbit up close and pet it and get a good look at its fur and claws and strong back legs.  We also talked with a garden expert over the internet and asked lots of questions about gardens, garden pests, and how to keep your garden from being eaten.  All of these experiences added to the students' background knowledge about the topic and helped them be prepared to be successful.

Then came the "Planning" stage of the design process.  We studied the materials that would be available for building and the class worked in groups of about 3 students to design their first plan.

The pictures below show groups in the "Design" stage where they are building their wall according to their first plan and trying to make things work.  That led pretty quickly to the "Improve" stage where students tried to fix what didn't work the way they wanted it to.  At this point of the design process we always get into a loop of designing and testing and improving as long as time, materials, and energy hold out.

Some walls got taller than others and students learned that with limited resources, you must plan carefully.  During our final tests, the robots played the part of rabbits trying to get through the wall.  All groups were at least partially successful and during the "Share" part of the design process, we watched the final tests together and discussed what was strong about each wall and what ideas they still have for further improvements.

This design process (imagine, plan, design, improve, share) is what we use to organize our engineering projects, but really it is applicable to many other areas! In math, writing, and reading we try something out (figuring out a new word, solving a problem, spelling a word) and test it to see if it makes sense with what else we know.  If it doesn't, we go back to try to improve our solution.  As we work through many other design projects this year, students will begin to talk about these stages very naturally and incorporate the "design thinking" into many things they do.  Look for examples in daily life of how you use this cycle!

Potato Project Kick-Off

Cannon is embarking on a gardening project this spring to grow potatoes and onions and then donate the fresh produce to a local food bank.  To start things off in 1st grade today each teacher had a different activity and the students rotated to every class during the day.  Mrs. Greuling had a building challenge for students to build a structure that could hold the weight of a potato.  Mrs. Boynton took groups to the garden to plant potatoes and Mrs. Heard took groups and planted onions.  Ms. Pettit took classes to the media lab to introduce the WeDo Lego Robotics (which we will begin next week - but that's a different post!)  In my class we observed some different types of potatoes and talked about words to describe what they looked, felt, and smelled like.

Then we got creative and started to imagine what potatoes might think about, or love, or fear, or wish for...  Students worked on writing potato poems (either about what they had observed or what they could create about those imaginary potatoes) and illustrated their poems.  Here are some potato poets hard at work:

New Garden

Our REAL School Garden installation was last Friday and so today we went out to see the sights!  The whole class was excited to see what had been done by all our fabulous volunteers!  This is a wonderful outdoor learning area that we will use in many ways!

This picture shows part of the rainbow sidewalk and a seating area made from logs and rocks.  There is a whiteboard for outdoor lessons and a table area to work at on the other side.  Near the building you can see some of the fruit trees that were planted as the beginning of an orchard.  On the other side of the area where the class is sitting, there is a raised area of planting beds for each grade level to use.

This area has plants chosen to attract monarch butterflies.

This rain barrel will collect water that runs off the roof so that it can run into the waterfall area or be used to water plants.  Nearby is a large sandbox for outdoor earth science experiments and demonstrations.

Our garden also includes a sundial and a weather station and lots of creative flower art designed by other grade levels.  Here is our class sitting and enjoying some quiet reading time in the sun on a lovely September morning!

Thank you to all of the sponsors and volunteers who made this project a reality for us!  We will love learning here!