Friday, January 24, 2014

A great start to the new year

January is flying by and we are enjoying the ride. Our nature field trip for the month was requested by our students. We packed our lunches, hopped on the Metro, and headed to Zilker Park. The sun came shining out and we even got to put our feet in the water. 
On our way!
Caleb getting a close look. 
Marina and the ducks. 
Max on the walk to the water. 
There was a log see-saw and it was fun to bounce up and down. 
Caleb
We brought our nature notebooks and found a sit-spot to observe nature and did some sketching. 



Laura's class is studying biographies of Amelia Earhart, Charles Darwin, Frida Kahlo, and Jacques Cousteau. 

 
For art class this week, we investigated Egyptian hieroglyphics from 3100-30 BC and wrote our name on cartouches. 




 Jack and his bagel face.
 Marina
 Amelia
Our Thursday Theme this week was show and tell. Everyone brought something special to share. 

Friday, January 3, 2014

January tour day is this week!

Now enrolling for the 2014-2015 school year!
Wednesday, January 8th is our next monthly tour day where parents and students can meet Caitlin and Laura and check out the schoolhouse. There are a few spots open for this tour so come on down! 

Our tour days are January 8th, February 5th, and March 5th from 4:30-5:30pm. 
To hold a spot email Caitlin at caitlin@microschools.org 

Enrollment deadline is March 7th. There are only a couple of tour days left so reserve your spot asap! 


Amelia and Marina under Mopac bridge on a field trip. 

Thursday, January 2, 2014

December at the Schoolhouse


We had a beautiful and chilly December in Austin and we enjoyed going outdoors to celebrate the refreshing season. One of our Thursday theme days was bike and scooter day. We bundled up and rode around the neighborhood practicing our biking and safety skills. 



One of our field trips was to the UT campus to visit Gully an expert astronomer. We learned about spectrum and diffraction grating. A special treat was seeing the sun through the solar telescope and going up to see the observatory.



Laura's class opened a store and each student ran their own business. Caleb had a toy store and researched what the market price was for each item. They enjoyed the project and we plan on opening it up again with bigger aspirations. 



We used different resources for our solar system inquiry unit. The kids agreed to integrate technology into our project so we learned how to research on the internet and practiced typing. 


Liam's uncle and aunt, Maria and Nate, came to visit one afternoon to share their expertise on nuts and mushrooms. They were visiting from Brazil and the kids were eager to meet them and had great questions on mushroom identification and toxicity.



Caitlin's class each picked Fantasy books to read and did a book project.  

Laura's class made mobiles over our solar system unit. 



Our last day in December was our showcase. All of our schoolhouse community was invited to come see our final presentations and projects and to wrap up our fall semester. 


Hope everyone had a great winter break! We are already revving up for the spring!