10/3/19

Today's class was packed! We began with our Farm Fusion chores. This will be the last week for this set of animal care jobs. Next week, they will rotate to new animals.

Today's lesson was about stress. We talked about different animals on the farm and their vastly different ways of dealing with problems. The guineas scream and run around and fight. The donkey brays and kicks, and occasionally she will take her anger out on the goats by chasing and biting. The goats didn't do anything to her... she just get mad and takes it out on others! The class talked about unhealthy ways that people deal with stress, as well. We had a class demonstration with whiffle balls to show how we can often handle a stressor or two when they come our way, but when there are many different stressors, we tend to be less able to manage.  Next, we talked about some healthy ways to deal with anxiety. I was so impressed with the examples that the kids came up with! Breathing slowly, finding a calm spot to think, talking it out... they knew what to do! I wish Delilah the donkey would try those things!

The students read their writing assignments, which turned out great! Last week, we trimmed the goat's hooves. At home, the kids wrote about the experience from the goat's point of view. I hope to make a big deal out of their accomplishments with writing, and to give enough positive support to keep their imaginations flowing!

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I read the book "Angora Kidd" to the class. This book is about an angora goat who does NOT want to be sheared! He runs away from home, has quite an adventure, and decided that his family was right after all... he needed to be sheared! In the end, shearing wasn't so bad, after all. This story went perfectly with our lesson on stress AND our goat hoof trimming lesson!


In art, the kids started their decoupage project. This will take at least another week to complete. I was very impressed with their patience with this!

Some of the students completed the optional research project for science class.  These were really interesting!  The students learned about how constellations that we see in the northern hemisphere appear upside down for those viewing them in the southern hemisphere.  We had a Power Point Presentation, a model, a star chart project, and illustration, and more!

Next, we talked about Empedocles and his idea that all things were made up of air.  Air, of course, is not an element, but is made up of many different elements.  In order to demonstrate this, the class completed a science lab using bromothymol blue.  We viewed bromothymol blue in water, documenting the color.  Then, the kids blew into the solution through a straw.  The carbon dioxide combined with the water to form carbonic acid, which changed the color of the solution from greenish blue to yellow.  The students documented the change in their notebooks, and we discussed the results.  Just for fun, I showed the kids what would happen if we created a base instead of an acid.  I added some of the farm's goat's milk soap to each jar, and the class was shocked to see the solution turn bright blue!  

In literature, the class turned in their reading comprehension questions from the week.  Then, the class broke up into small groups.  I gave each group a few books on the Iroquois and longhouses.  They worked together to draw out an exterior and interior view of a typical longhouse.  Then, the groups had to imagine they were in Little Bear's tribe.  They had to think about the tribe's point of view... What did THEY think when Little Bear disappeared?  Did they think the Algonquins had taken him?  Or the French?  Each group had to come up with a script of dialogue for 3-5 Iroquois tribe members. They loved this activity!  I made sure the students kept their scripts historically accurate and not too silly.  They will read through their scripts next week in class.

In grammar, we discussed regular and irregular plurals, regular and irregular verbs, and the class learned about participles.  We used the individual whiteboards to keep things fun while we practiced!