fall came, and went

October quickly gained momentum and seemed to blur straight into the beginning of November.  With it came a few moments of classroom creativity.

Following our learning of the body systems, we pieced together skeletons right before Halloween.  My favorites are the rainbow bones and the red skull.  

At some point, the high school went rabbit hunting and left extra catch in the office for those that would like some.  Providing extra or giving to community and elders is an important element of culture in the village.

Snow came.

A student game me this illustration.  They often talk about Stella.  Other kids will ask me about her too.  Even though she was only in Marshall for a bit, she apparently had made her mark.

One Wednesday, I decided it was time to paint pumpkins.  I borrowed Liz's collection from our home and set up a still life.

We did not have orange paint so  a mini lesson on color mixing was needed.

A few students were very exacting about their pumpkins.  This one spent a good deal of time be precise.  Others were not as eager and following this thumbnail sketches were done with pumpkins.

"Miss T, can I paint something else?"

"Sure, whatever you want as long as it is school appropriate."

Suddenly, after a few slips of the brush, everyone realized painting with hands is much more fun.  So, I took a deep breath and embraced what was about to happen.

It happened.

"If I find paint anywhere in this room, we will NEVER paint again."

Somehow, it was all cleaned up.

Later that day, being that my students were already in a exploratory mood, we took a walk outside.  There was hoarfrost on everything.  It was beautiful and need them to get a good look at it.  We grabbed some sort of looking device I found the cupboards, clipboards and our jackets.  Outside it was beautiful.

Hoarfrost is rather common here, I have witnessed it a few times already, but my students were not aware it was anything different than snow.

I encouraged them observe it on different structures. 

Finally, after a few minutes at trying to figure out the scope, one succeeded and cried out, "It looks like crystals!"  He was very excited to have made that discovery.

It was one morning a few weeks later that my class discovered they could zip together ALL of their coats.  Naturally, I was curious to see this as well, so we took a few minutes in the name of exploration.