Progressive Education and Developmental Curriculum: See PACT in Action

2007-2008. Throughout the school year, teachers and parents supplement the PACT curriculum with activities in gardening, cooking, literacy circles, physical education and music. They provide transportation for field trips relevant to their classroom studies, adding a valuable set of experiences for each student.

PACT is more than a school -- it's also a close-knit community. PACT parents and students gather frequently for informal social events, and also more formally for PACT-wide events organized by our Social Committee. Every year, this committee organizes events for children and parents like our Friday afternoon playdates, excursions to a local pumpkin patch, PACT days at the Jungle, Rock Climbing, Ice Skating, Pajama and Movie Night, potluck dinners, and our annual Festival of Lights.

Kindergartners vs. Salad

Yesterday we went out to the garden and picked red lettuce, green lettuce, and rosemary. After the children made the salad dressing, each one was given a plate with one piece each of red and green lettuce and a bit of salad dressing.

There was NO arm twisting, cajoling, pleading, or anything. Every child chose to try all three things and did so with the utmost bravery.

Okay, so that doesn't mean that nobody chewed it up and then spit it out (no names here), wiping his tongue thoroughly to get off every little last piece.

It was incredibly amazing to see a whole class of 5 and 6 year olds eat salad and truly be open and curious about it. Last week when we looked at the garden I pointed out the lettuce and mentioned how the next week we'd be trying salad. I received a fair amount of negative comments as to how they DON'T EAT salad. But they did!!! Wow!!! And MANY of them LIKED it . . . or at least were surprised that it wasn't horrible. VERY IMPRESSIVE.

Laboratory Stories Room 36 (Ms. McCleary's first grade class) had a visitor named Karen Peck from the Children's Discovery Museum in mid-January. Our class is learning about solids and liquids in science and will learn about gasses later in the year. This was a great introduction and visual demonstration of the three states of matter.

Savannah S. dictated about her experience in the Laboratory Stories program:

"We listened to a story about a fairy that left because the bears and the bats had a really loud party and she didn't want to help them make fog to hide the party. That's when we did experiments with dry ice because wanted to figure out how to help the bears and bats. She (Karen) did experiments with dry ice to make fog. Any metal, even the smallest piece, will go buzzzzz. I learned that if you put food coloring in the water with the dry ice, the food coloring will only dissolve in the water and not go in the fog. It will also go in a thick layer of ice over the dry ice (that's real water ice). I learned that there are chemicals in dry ice that you cannot touch. We got to taste carbonated water. Some kids didn't like it, but I did. I would describe it like bubble water-fruit water. We would help the bears and the bats by making fog for them out of dry ice. You take dry ice and add water then blow on it to make fog."

Nature Field Trip with Room 10

Room 10 traveled to the Seymour Center near Elkhorn Slough to learn about sea creatures. The largest complete whale skeleton is on display there, so big that many of the children were sure it was fake. Inside, there are tanks of sea creatures under active study, not just for teaching purposes. Shane was excited to tell everyone about the wolf eel: it got two infected teeth last month, and it had to have them pulled! Spencer learned that jellyfish have to be kept in round tanks, because they tear their "skin" on the corners in a square tank. Miranda touched everything in the touch pool, even though some of the other kids were too timid.

After the Seymour Center, the class went to Natural Bridges State Beach, where the monarch butterflies spend their winters. The class knew all about metamorphosis, having studied mealworms in class. The docents borrowed the chaperones for a live demonstration - dressing them up as a monarch larva, pupa, and butterfly. The children laughed and laughed. After the discussion and demonstration, they went outside to see the milkweed garden, and then the butterfly grove itself. The trees were laden with butterflies, according to Ashley, "so many outside to fill up half this room!"

Baking Bread

The kids in Room 34 have been learning about bread! We had a wonderful field trip to Acme Bakery yesterday where we all got to see how "the big guys" produce thousands of loaves a week in their industrial bakery, and we've been working on baking our own bread for the last two weeks during our cooking lessons. Click here to read more ...

Rocket Playdate The PACT social committee arranged a very special park playdate in the fall of 2007 - a water rocket launch. The email list was abuzz the week before as people gathered their supplies. For the group, we would need some large tubs for water, watering cans, and bicycle pumps. A list of supplies went out for each rocket to be built: cereal box, easter egg, paper towel roll, two-liter bottle. Families brought extras of just about everything, to share. The social committee provided scissors, lots of tape, and the rocket kits from sciencekit.com. The organizers gave the parents a quick lesson, and everybody pitched in to organize - keeping the water tubs filled, helping dozens of kids at the crafts table, manning the pumps, and keeping the lines moving as everyone waited for their turn to launch.

The launches were just astonishing, drawing a crowd from the families who live near the school. Words can't do it justice:

click to see the video

(popup window). A little crowd of PACT students chased the rockets, trying to catching them on the way down.

As the rockets got wetter, some of them lost fins or other parts, but it was too dark to find them all. PACT parents returned in the morning to get any bits of cardboard or tape that had escaped the first cleanup. Another parent printed out photos and made a poster for outside the office. It was a great event, with lots of fun for everyone.

First Field Trip

What a great day we had in Room 34!

Here's to the Kindergarteners' brave 1st Field Trip chaperones: Kim, Abigail, Catherine and Esperanza. They were great and handled with ease (or at least it appeared like ease!) the little dramas and traumas of field trips. We walked down Latham Street, crossed at the crosswalk, stopped at 2 houses (one was Daniel's house) to count windows by 1's and 2's, then turned the corner into the side street, where each group chose a house (even the choosing was not a small matter) to observe, notice shapes, count windows, then draw.

With Catherine's camera, we took pictures of each group and each house, so we will be able to make a book of our first field trip.

We wound up the field trip with a yummy piece of zucchini bread, made by the class under the expert guidance of Amy two days before.

Rachel did an awesome job this afternoon of taking the children out in small groups to "plant" lima beans in paper and add water. By school's end, we observed that the lima beans had already started to "wrinkle", the skin breaking to reveal the inner bean. They did one last sketch before the end of school.

This afternoon was our first experience with actual group rotations, which was also a new experience for the children. (They wall wanted to know: "WHEN do I get to do that?") Everyone got to do everything, and I think all were pleased, if tired, at the end of the day.

The children handled the busy day extremely well, and it couldn't have happenned without the help of great parent volunteers.

This year is exciting, but we did even more last year! Click here to read on ...