Thanksgiving at CIPEC

CIPEC Week Nine: Thanksgiving at CIPEC

            I feel so gratefully to have had the opportunity to spend Thanksgiving with my students.  I taught them about my traditions in New Jersey with my family, showed them pictures of the wild turkeys that live in my backyard, and pictures of me at the Macy Day Parade in NYC.  The students had all learned about Thanksgiving in preparation for their feast on Friday so they were so excited to answer all of my questions.  After talking about Thanksgiving with K1, I went back to Ms. Guillian’s classroom to help with the second part of our lesson on magnets from last week.

            This week, each student brought in a large salad bowl and filled it with water.  Then, they each magnetized a needle by rubbing it against a magnet “100” times.  We then put a cork in the water and balanced the needle on top of the piece of cork.  After 5-10 seconds, the needle started pointing North.  The students were absolutely amazed that it worked every time!  After the main part of the lesson was over, I had the opportunity to talk to the students about what a cornucopia is and what their favorite fruits are.  Many of the students named fruits that the other students and I hadn’t even heard of.  I was shocked by how many fruits I haven’t tried. 

            After science class, I stayed in the science room with the students and helped them rearrange the tables and chairs for drama.  During drama class Ms. Jill read a Thanksgiving story and the students all silently but dramatically mimed the story.  Before the story, Ms. Jill referred to tidbits of history she had taught the students the previous class.  They also applied their science lesson on agriculture to the different farming techniques the pilgrims used prior to Thanksgiving.  Even though the students weren’t prompted to make these connections, the way the CIPEC curriculum is structured stimulates students to think about how each lesson they learn applies to larger phenomenon.