This week we began our block on the measurement of weight and volume. I asked the children to tell me what the word weight means. Xavier, one of my students, replied, 'it's a little tricky to define.' The class decided that weight is how light or how heavy something is. Giovanni, another student, wanted to add the role of gravity in the definition. I was so impressed!

  

It was a fortunate situation that the work crew who had been re-wiring the phones and Internet for the school had left a huge wooden spool outside of the classroom. I searched the campus for a perfect piece of wood and thanks to class parent Peter Norgaard, one was located. The spool and wood were situated in the back of the class, but I did not tell the children what we would be doing with it.

  

 As soon as we started discussing ways to measure weight, the children knew we were going to create a balance scale. For the next 45 minutes of main lesson and all of our next lesson, we experimented with the scale. Using a digital scale, I quickly wrote down the weight of all the children. At first, I chose which children would sit on the beam to create a balance, but then I told them that they would have to determine who would create the balance. It really got fun when we had two or three children on opposing sides. I joined in a couple times. It was such a wonderful morning!"

  

Wednesday, January 20

8:30 a.m.-10 a.m.