Electron/Muon Writer’s Workshop
Today in Writer’s Worshop we discussed poetry. We labeled some common characteristics of poetry like,rhythm,imagery,and emotional expression. We talked about different types of poetry and the kids listed some of the types that they knew. I then introduced them to a style of poetry called found poetry. In found poetry the creator makes an original poem by taking an already existing text and and altering it by either blacking out the parts that they don’t want to use or highlighting the words they would like use( or both) This can be done quite simply or rather decoratively as we saw in the examples that I shared.
After our discussion, the kids and the parents got to work on their journals. The nice thing about this ongoing project is that everyone gets to work at their own pace. So while some were working on their list from last week,others got back to work on their cover,and some even started thinking about what pages of their journals they would use for found poetry.
Magic Muons
The Muons settled on a design for the first Muon Co-op Dollar, and nominated Peter to appear on the first bill. We discussed various ways of incorporating the dollars into a Co-op economy, and explored various applications for spending and dealing with inflation. The kids spent the last half of our class period discussing and planning for several interview subjects that they plan to incorporate into our zine. One of the Protons was interviewed on the topic of Transformers, an Electron was interviewed on the topic of hamsters, and one of our parent volunteers was interviewed on the topic of charity work for children who are facing health issues. The interviews were recorded, and the Muons plan to transcribe them into a written format for publication in the zine soon.
Quark Unit Studies
Quarks finished their study of the seven continents this week with a close look at Antarctica. They finished coloring their globes, placed native animal stickers on their maps, listened to silly poems about penguins, colored penguins, and got their final “passport” stamps. Next week, Quarks will see their globes and passports ready to take home in their cubbies.
Neutron Drama
In preparation for a short production of The VERY Cranky Bear, Neutrons created their own ‘costumes’~ face masks of various woodland animals. We then rehearsed our play and practiced emulating the different personalities of animals in the story.

Found Poetry, Antarctica, and Co-Op Dollars