We welcomed our second guest educator into the classroom this morning, thanks to a grant from MassPort supporting community education via field trips and guest educators.  We were so excited to have Rainforest Reptiles join us today!  A local company based out of Beverly, MA, this collection of biologists offer classroom visits and parties to teach about a variety of reptiles and amphibians, as well as the importance of rainforest conservation.  Our guest herpetologist, Bethany, brought several terrariums that are home to various snakes, tarantulas, scorpions, frogs, and turtles.  After observing these creatures in their terrariums, she showed us the 4 stars of the show: Georgie the red-footed tortoise, Snoopy the black and white tegu lizard, Louie the common boa constrictor, and Ginger the alligator!  Bethany taught us about each creature’s habitat, how and what it likes to eat, and how big and old each would grow to be.  The Tugboats were amazed to learn that Georgie could live to be 200 years old, or that Louie would weigh as much as 2 4-year olds when he is fully grown!  A few brave volunteers helped Bethany demonstrate that snakes aren’t slimy, or that snake skin is made of the same material as human hair.  After the show, everyone got an opportunity to pet Ginger.  A simple piece of scotch tape was all she needed to know not to snip snap at any of our fingers!

Are you gearing up for the holiday gift-giving season?  It’s closer than you think!  Feeling stumped over what to offer your nieces and nephews, cousins, or even your own Tugboat?  HCS is here to help!

We’ve partnered up with Scholastic Book Clubs (remember those amazing Books Fairs from elementary school?) to make your holiday shopping a little easier this year.  When you purchase a book or interactive learning tool from one of Scholastic’s catalogues, HCS earns points for every dollar we spend as a school.  Those points add up to free books for your child’s classroom!

Check out the catalogues we have at school or visit Scholastic on the web (www.scholastic.com/parents).  You can place paper orders through staff or online and use our classroom code L4C9V.  When you purchase books and educational electronics through Scholastic, you’re supporting the young learners in your life and Harbor City School at the same time!

After the excitement of Circus Smirkus last week, we needed a mellow to week to cool down!  This week’s activities focused on the bountiful harvest we’ve been pulling from our plot at the Bremen St. Community Garden.  We’ve enjoyed our garden snacks for the past couple of months, but have noticed that there are many parts of the plant that we can’t, or don’t, eat.  What could we do with these things besides compost them?  The question of experimentation never lasts long at Harbor City School, as the Tugboats need little provocation to begin using materials in creative and unique ways!

We kicked off the week with a nature walk through the park, in which we collected materials to use for collages back at school.  The students often want to collect rocks, twigs, and special leaves that they find on our walks.  Typically, this only creates a mess at school and even a few tears if items get lots, so this project allowed them to capitalize on their interest.  We gathered grass, leaves, twigs, bark, and even some fallen fruit.  The resulting collages were a beautiful composition of materials that have their natural element in common, but don’t often go alongside one another.

On Wednesday, we attempted collecting of a new kind: bug hunting!  Our parent helper taught us how to sweep the grass with our nets in an effort to catch flies, ladybugs, caterpillars, and other low-lying bugs.  We didn’t collect as many bugs as we anticipated, but we are excited to venture out and try again soon!  Back indoors, we took our natural art to a sculptural level by making corn husk people.  Each child was assisted by an adult in using twine to twist and wrap the corn husks into the shape of people.  Next, they added corn silk for hair if they wanted, as well as scraps of paper and fabric to create clothes.  Once their dolls were dry, the dramatic play scenarios that erupted from the students were wild and imaginative indeed!

We ended our week using the plants as a means of applying paint to our paper.  The Tugboats are fascinated by beets, with their secretive underground growth and their rich, vibrant color.  They are not huge fans of eating the beets, however, and so we’ve got a harvest that we’re struggling to use.  On Thursday, we cut the beets in half and tried using them as stamps.  Their juice wasn’t quite strong enough to color the paper, but the shapes of the bisected beets were quite interesting, so we switched to liquid watercolor and developed some lovely color and shape studies!  Today, we rounded out our beet art by using the beet greens as brushes.  The students liked how the leaves left a smooth application of paint, as opposed to the segmented strokes left by the typical brush.  They practiced mixing colors, blending red and yellows to make an array of oranges.  It feels like we are getting ready for fall!

We also made some decidedly unnatural art this week with our Artist in Residence, Elaine.  We collected glass jars and Elaine found some very exciting glow in the dark paint for us to experiment with!  Each student painted the inside and outside of his or her jar with a smattering of neon colors.  Elaine taught them how to “charge” the paint by shining a bright flashlight on them.  We turned out the lights and watched our jars glow!

We had such a great time taking our first major field trip to Circus Smirkus! We took 25 kiddos and 16 adults on the Blue line to Beachmont, where we watched a talented troupe of acrobats, all under the age of 18, perform an amazing cabaret of circus acts. The Tugboats were quite inspired–I think we’ve got some future acrobats on our hands!

Later in the week, we experimented with making our own sensory materials by dyeing rice! Working in pairs, we carefully added delicate amounts of colored water to bowls of rice and stirred to mix. Too much water would make our rice soggy, but too little water wouldn’t change the color at all! We spread our rice out flat so it could dry. Once it was finished, we added it to our sensory table for further exploration. Check out the photos below for our rainbow rice!

The month of August is a growing season, not just for our plot in the Bremen St. Community Garden, but for our students as well.  On Monday, we joyfully (and tearfully) celebrated Harbor City School’s historic first graduation with more than 50 friends and family members.  We reminisced about where the Tugboats were a year ago, and marveled at that they have accomplished in that time.  After earning their diplomas and singing “The Rainbow Connection,” the graduates had a casual picnic filled with delicious food, play time with friends from HCS as well as other neighborhood schools, and hugs galore.  Check out our Flickr page for photos and video!

We’ve experienced a bountiful harvest from our garden for the past few weeks, and have enjoyed daily snacks that we grew ourselves!  Many preschool-age children, especially those living in urban areas, have limited knowledge about where their food comes from.  When asked where they typically get their food, they simply answer “the store.”  When asked where it was before that, most children reply, “In the back of the store!”  With our plot in the Community Garden, we’re seeking to change those perceptions.  The children are involved in the preparation of the plot, the planting of seeds, and the tending of the plants while they grow.  Many of the Tugboats have learned how to carefully harvest vegetables and can be replied upon to do so independently!  They are experts at cutting leaf lettuce, selecting tomatoes, plucking green beans from the vine, and yanking carrots from the ground!

This week, we’ve integrated their developing knowledge of the garden and plants into the classroom during project time.  The Tugboats are quite familiar with seeds, although few of them identify which plants will grow from which seeds.  One day, we gave each child a piece of paper with a small seed glued to the bottom of the page.  We drew a green line for grass and then set their creativity loose to imagine what plant would emerge from their seed.  The beautiful garden that resulted was amazing!  Some children grew plants in the seedling stage, others drew fully grown plants, and others even adorned their plants with butterflies or bees!  We’ve also been playing a few plant-themed card games.  In one such game, the children turn over cards with objects printed on them.  If the printed object helps a plant grow, they color in a portion of a plant stem on the game board.  If not, they simply discard.  When they have collected all of the objects needed to help plants grow, their flower’s stem is complete!  Another card game, called Find the Trowel, involves a deck of numbered cards (1-20) with cabbages on them.  The dealer hides a card printed with a trowel under one of the cabbages, and the players must guess which numbered cabbage is hiding the trowel.  For some children, this exercises their memories and guessing abilities, while others use the game to practice number recognition.

We’re looking forward to rounding out our summer curriculum with more garden exploration.  Stay tuned!