Cultivating Questioners

What a busy couple of weeks it has been! December seems to be so full of all sorts of “extra” stuff at my school — most of it meaningful and important, like my students’ holiday concert — but it does mean that I’ve had a lot less instructional time than I am used to having. I find myself praying that we WON’T have any snow days or delays this week — otherwise I just won’t be able to fit everything in that I need and want to!

It’s also been an exciting time in my classroom. Two Fridays ago, we had a special guest come to the room to talk about worm composting and I also brought in the worm composting bin that we’ll have in our classroom for the rest of the year. (I took a worm composting course this fall, in hopes that I would be able to bring a composting bin into my classroom — and it worked out!) My students were so excited about having a new addition to our classroom. They amazed me with their attentiveness and engagement in our guest’s presentation and not one of them expressed any sense of squeamishness about our new wriggly friends.

This past Wednesday, we did some explorations with our worms and I got to use an activity pack that I have put up for sale in my TPT store (http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Wriggly-Worms-Writing-Measuring-and-Learning-about-Worms-997647). My students all got to have worms on their desks and completed a sheet of observations about their worms. It was very endearing to watch them struggle to accurately measure a wiggling worm and to have them order complete silence so that they could see whether their worms made any kind of noise. Needless to say, I’m very excited about our worm compost bin and can’t wait for us to be able to do lots of difference science experiments with it!

In addition to the wriggly worms, I’ve also been sharing my classroom with some rather wriggly children these days. They are very excited about the upcoming holidays and have been quite a handful! I am hoping to keep them engaged throughout this last week before break — I have been dutifully memorizing “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” and I am ready to recite to my students on our “Grinch Day” this coming Wednesday. My students will also be designing their own holidays this week, and I am excited to see what they dream up! But, even with a lot of fun stuff, I still think this is going to be a long week!