12/12/18

Island of the Blue Dolphins Travel Brochure Project

 The class read the first few chapters of Hatchet.  They were told to pay special attention to the details given on the plane and cockpit.  In class, each group was given the same items and had to replicate the cockpit to the best of their ability.  The creativity was seriously amazing!  I love how different each group's projects were!

12/5/18

 Highlights from Today:

*South American countries test

*Took up Island of the Blue Dolphin pamphlet project (will vote on them next week)

*Discussed the new book, Hatchet and gave assignments for the week

*South America presentations, including music, art, food, handouts, and power point presentations!  Wow!

*Reading the journal entries from the perspective on an animal on the island

*Warming up a chilled silkie hen by the heater

*Vocabulary review

*Viewing and discussing the results of our petri dish experiment (and learning about yeast!)

*Finalizing our pasta ornaments and painting our next project

*Visit from a Costa Rican zebra tarantula, also known as the striped-knee tarantula

*Getting Miss Holly off topic telling crazy farm stories!

11/28/18

It was a super cold day today!  Brr!  We hung out inside during lunch and played board games, but still had a good time!

Today we began with a lessen in guinea hens.  We talked about how they originated in Africa, their purpose on the farm, and their funny personalities.  The kids compared them to turkeys, and I explained to them the hilarious differences between turkey poults and guinea keets.  They are total opposites in behavior!  The class read through their Farm Fusion stories as they had a snack, and then we proceeded to our language arts lessons.

The class is finishing up Island of the Blue Dolphins, and we had so much to talk about!  We reviewed the vocabulary words from these chapters and spent some time reading through their Reader's Journal entries about the Dark Cave.  At home, they are going to work on a final project for the book.  They will be creating trifold travel brochures for the island, pointing out the key features and getting creative with Karana's different spots on the island!  In class, they worked on a quick writing assignment where they put themselves in the place of one of the animals in the book and told about a day from their perspective.  Some kids finished in class, but others will work on them at home and bring them in next week.

We reviewed the different countries in South America.  This class is rocking it!  They broke up into groups and worked on a map labeling activity.  We will have a test over them next week, and I know it will be great!  

In science class, the class learned about hypotheses.  They will be creating their own regarding our petri dish experiment at home to add to their science notebook.  For the experiment, I explained the importance of sterile equipment and careful collection.  We swabbed the doorknob and swiped it across one dish, the faucet for another, and then we used Clorox wipes on both surfaces and reswabbed, each time with a new sterile swab.  We carefully taped up the edges to seal the dishes and placed them in a warm, dark place.  The class is very excited to see what pops up by next week!

We began a new project in art... pasta snowflakes!  They worked on creating a symmetrical design and then glued them together.  All of the extra pasta that had been handled was soaked in water and fed to the pigs, who will go to be processed next week.

I will take their projects and spray them with white and glitter before we meet again!

 

11/14/18