Our staff knows I appreciate a great joke, a funny cartoon, or a cute saying, so a teacher handed me a cartoon this morning to start my day.  The picture shows a child talking with the teacher at the beginning of the day and saying:  “My dog ate my homework and it got arithmeTICs.”  🙂  Honestly, some of the math problems I see our learners working gives me the eye-twitch!

So yesterday morning while unloading cars and buses, our first grade friends were carrying in their Arctic Animal Projects–not one first grader said “the dog ate my homework!”  Their enthusiasm for everything they learned during this project fascinated me, so I took some time today to ask some questions about their work.  One child shared how they were each given an Arctic animal (everything from polar bears and killer whales to harp seals and walruses) to “talk about and report back to the class on; we had to use details!”  🙂 Another friend commented about doing “research in our library book–do you know how to check out a book in the library and do researching, Mrs. Van?” 🙂  Another learner chimed in to say, “it’s all about the facts and the pictures; little kids need pictures so they get it.”  🙂  Another first grader summarized it this way:  “We had to share facts, important ones and not silly ones; we had to answer questions our friends asked us during our class talk like, ‘Who are the predators? – or – How do they survive the cold?’ and then we showed our stuff to everyone.”  🙂  As you can see from the pictures, they are extensive projects.  One friend summed it up best though when asked about this work:  “I think this homework was cool, Mrs. Van–get it? Cool!!” 🙂  Although I agree, I think it’s especially COOL to see young learners share so much knowledge with each other!