Today I went to the Wood and Paper kit training for FOSS kits. This unit is designed for kindergarten. They had all kinds of hands-on activities. I was most impressed with the way they showed different kinds of woods, and after showing them particle board and pressed sandwich board they actually made some! The materials in the kit even included strainers so that they could get the wood shavings wet to see how they would behave when wet. I'm pretty sure there are adults out there that don't understand how these are made, and the kindergartners will be able to use the understandings gained from this kit to build even further understandings as they see things that they now have a place to attach in their brains. Veneer, and wooden puzzles, and wooden toys will all look different to them now. They no longer make paper in this kit, but we talked about how that can be done so the teachers can easily extend the learning to include that.
The teachers were wishing they had a packet and I offered to make it if they wanted me to, so I made them a packet of the things they requested be put together as such. I e-mailed it to the ones that wanted it (which was all of them). This can be put in the toolkit when I learn how to work on it.
I'm back at 6th street this afternoon since we got out of the workshop working on my 'to do' list. I took a calendar to Janine's office and ran off a list of the EIE kits for my notebook.
I made a record of what VAST kits Mount Vernon uses and what grades check them out. I sent this list to the Gifted and Talented teacher in Mount Vernon along with the EIE kits that compliment each unit in case she might like to use those for ELP activities. I also sent her a link to the YouTube video of Erica, Jim and me doing the "Catching the Wind" activity to give her an idea of what they are like.
