2 on a Crayon and Mr. Helmke does awesome agricultural math with us!

The partners concentrate, smile, laugh, shrug, and look confused. The process of creating a picture sharing a crayon sounded super weird and exciting. This activity was one that them thinking...

During the Morning Meeting, the activity was called "2 on a Crayon". It is really interesting to watch and for the kids to do. Without talking or knowing what the each other wants to draw, the two kids share a crayon to draw a picture. Several minutes pass as they were all concentrating with music from the record player adding an air of mystery. When time was up, the kids came back to the circle and we discussed what happened when they were drawing, what it was like, and what they thought out it is. The partners put together were not random, I picked some personalities to see how cooperation or competition would affect the work together. We will do it again...saw them all really giving it some thought when we talked...

     

Then for Science, Social Studies and Math when

 Mr. Helmke visited!!!

 Having Parent Experts visit and talk about what they do is one of the best things for the kids to connect their learning to. Mr. Helmke explained what he does with John Deere and how things are figured for farmers. The kids looked at the costs, time, and worries. Mr. Helmke shared the joys of his job. On the whiteboard behind the kids you can see all the math (we got to work with the power of 10) when thinking about life as a farmer.  We talked about how farmers have 'adapted' to better techniques by looking at the models brought in. He even gave us the set with cool books that explain all the workings. It was such a great talk--right at their level and super interesting. THANK YOU MR. HELMKE!!!!

                          This is classic MCS and totally STEAM!