Using a cup, straws, balloons and tape, Middle School students created lungs. The cup represents the chest cavity and tape which seals around the straw is the nose and mouth. Inside the cup, the straws replicate the bronchi and trachea. Lungs are placed at the bottom in the form of balloons. The bottom of the cup is covered with a large balloon to stand in place of the diaphragm. When pulled, the lungs inflate!
The Oxford NAACP hosted its annual MLK Jr. Community Celebration and Creative Arts Exposition at the Oxford Community Arts Center. We are grateful to the NAACP for the extraordinary opportunity for our students to know they are a part of the celebration of Dr. King. Thank you to McGuffey staff for fostering student participation and for the families who could come see all of the wonderful art.
Primary students are studying the human body, turning their attention to bones. Works on the shelf include a life-size skeleton puzzle, a layered human body puzzle, and animal bones. Kindergarteners are digging deeper, literally! They are dissecting owl pellets, the compact mass of indigestible materials that owl’s regurgitate. Owl pellets contain fur, feathers, teeth, and bones of smaller animals. Kindergarteners match the contents of the pellet to a control chart to identify what they discovered in the owl pellet. Note that bones found in nature should always cleaned and sterilized before handling.
The Reading Partners program in Lower Elementary is in full swing. Reading aloud to a friend not only brings comfort, it can also build fluency and confidence. Sharing a book with another student improves critical thinking for both students as they process and discuss text together, analyzing its meaning. Besides academic growth and social-emotional time, it’s downright cozy on a winter day.
The Smelling Bottles isolate and refine the sense of smell through matching pairs of distinct scents (like cinnamon, citrus, and mint) using identical containers. As Primary students compare and match scents, they build vocabulary, memory, and connect to their environment in a new way. These hands-on materials help develop sensory discrimination, moving from simple matching to associating smells with pictures or daily life, fostering a deeper understanding of the world.
The first of three Ice Skating field trips is in the books. The kids (and staff!) had a ball. Many thanks to parent volunteers for helping younger students get ice-skates laced and heading onto the ice with us.
Grades One and Two have completed a hand sewing project, “pop tart” pillows. Students designed their pop tarts on paper and then had a group critque to help each student plan the construction of their chosen design. Students could dream up with any flavor they could think of like Slime & Banana, Nutella & Cheerios, and Strawberries & Cream! The pillows were hand sewn and decorated.
Middle School students are studying human anatomy and physiology. They use Play-Dough to create a model of a system or organ. Students not only create models of their subject of study, but lead group work using “word bags” to deconstruct scientific words into their base or root, prefix and suffix as well as delve deeper into word meaning using scientific word inquiry. These eye models are extraordinary!
Tiny hats, Picasso inspired portraits, collage, and holiday making have made art an exciting place!
First and second graders got messy while exploring the elements that make up soil. This is the time of year that leaves drop and plants begin to decompose, making up leaf litter. Students found a few rocks and saw what happened when force is applied to them with a hammer. They broke into smaller and smaller bits, a process that happens in nature due to water, ice, and wind. The minerals from rocks combine with leaf litter, other organic matter, water, and air to make soil.
All of Lower Elementary closed out a unit on India by trying some Indian food. Although some were a little tentative at first, kids chowed down on naan, curry, saag paneer, and dal makhani. Many asked for seconds and even thirds! Even the pickiest eaters agreed the rice and naan were delicious.
