Hi, Folks,
After last weeks’ tragic sequence of events, I have added a creature to the zoo that I am absolutely sure will withstand the harsh habitat of the Hirsch Academy. How can I be so sure this one won’t end up in the great “class pet” center in the sky? Because this fella is already there.
Meet o’connor octopus
How, you ask, did your child’s teacher end up with a dead octopus in a jar?
My best friend, Dorothy O’Connor, is a talented photographer. She builds these incredible, fantastical, dreamlike scenes in her studio, photographs them, and then shows the scene in front of live audiences with a real model. Check them out; they are amazing (and, you can see one live this weekend--it’s free!). http://www.dorothyoconnor.com/MainFrame.html
Her last installation was an underwater scene. Scouring the markets of Buford Highway she found our pet, ready to be used in a delicious Asian dish. One large jar and lots of rubbing alcohol later, the octopus was ready for his close-up, Mr. DeMille. After his 15 minutes of fame, the octopus had to move on. To my front porch. My children were delighted and immediately named him “O’Connor the Oakhurst (my kids’ school) Octopus”. But, because having a dead octopus in a jar on your front porch is generally frowned upon in civilized society, I thought the Hirsch kids would get a kick out of meeting him. Or 8 kicks...(yes, expect your kidlets to come home with some really corny octopus jokes net week)
O’Connor has already been such an inspiration!
Here is a crew describing him using Octo-adjectives:
And here is an excerpt from Aidan R.’s outstanding short story, Invasion of O’Connor Octopus’ Octobots!:
O’Connor is quite the mathematician and has requested that next week some of us should visit his family deep under the ocean to explore negative numbers and an armful of addition and subtraction activities. Stay tuned!
O’Connor wasn’t the only animal character of interest this week.
*Three Pigs, The Good Fox, The Big Bad Bear, The Good Cat and The Dog
are the characters in the group fairy tale “Three Little Pigs and One House”.
The kids wrote this story together, with each student adding a line as we went around the table. It was a tough exercise at first, because we all had very specific ideas about how we wanted the story to go. Sometimes, the story was changed by our friends, and not always in the way we wanted. But, we worked really hard to be flexible and accept our classmates’ ideas. For example, some of us are learning that interesting stories have a problem and solution in them. But, for a couple of Predator kids, having something bad happen in a story still brings up uncomfortable feelings. Yet we were able to come up with a problem and although we haven’t completed the story yet, we even acted it out. It was wonderful! We will finish it next week. Meanwhile,my trusty secretary, Jennifer P., is helping me type the words into a PowerPoint presentation.
*The Mekong Dolphin is the animal we have chosen for “adoption” from the World Wildlife Fund. We chose this animal from a list of critically endangered creatures. There are several levels of adoption donations, and are saving for the $50 level. Check out the website to see what we’re saving for:
http://www.worldwildlife.org/gift-center/gifts/Species-Adoptions/Mekong-Dolphin.aspx
The money for the adoption comes from our “WWF” savings account. Each week we transfer 10% of our checking account into our savings. So far, we have almost $15.00 saved. Amazingly, a couple of our kids were able to calculate this:
Each kid gets paid $5.00 a week.
Each kid puts 10% of this check into the WWF savings.
How many weeks until we have the $50 needed for our Mekong Dolphin adoption?
7 weeks. Hmm...that’s a long time. What can we do to make more money, quickly?
Some of us are still working on our “crafts” to sell, and we also talked about holding a bake sale. We are super excited to start baking in class, and have picked “Buried Treasure Muffins” as our first recipe. We listed the ingredients and each kid picked two from a hat. We would love if you and your little chef could take a trip to the store together to purchase the ingredients. Ideally, we would like to do this next Wednesday or Thursday.
Feel free to send the whole package in or (math lesson alert!) measure the ingredients with your child to bring in the exact amount:
Jennifer: ½ cup cooking oil, 4 tsp baking powder
Max: 2 cups milk, 1 cup sugar
Aidan Hurtado: 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon salt
Gabriel: 24 paper muffin cups, 2 cups all purpose flour
Aidan Reilly: 2 sticks of butter, 2 cups of quick oats
I also invite any and all of you to bake (or buy, with your child’s assistance) something at home to add to the bake sale. We’ll have to decide on the official date of the sale next week so that we can advertise and alert the other kids and parents. I’ll let you know. As you shop/measure/bake, question your child, “Why are we making/buying these treats?”. Do they understand that we are going to sell these items? Do they know that this money is going to help us adopt our dolphin?
If you are looking for an outdoor activity next Saturday, the 15th, check this out. I’ll probably be out there with my own little nature lovin’ city kids:
http://online.nwf.org/site/PageServer?pagename=hikeandseek_register_2011
Have a great weekend!
Amanda and Erin
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