Semester 3- Week 2

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Photos

Tuesday

Morning Gathering

Today we reviewed the cardinal directions and how to locate them without an electronic device or a compass! Speaking of compasses, did you know you can make your very own with just a few supplies? Students helped create a compass in class with a cork floating in water and a magnetized needle. They all took turns spinning the needle, watching it continuously end pointing north. We learned a little about the Earth's electromagnetic field and how this helps not only magnetic needles point north, but also many migrating animals around the world!

Writing

Group 1-

Students worked on spelling, vocabulary and writing simple sentences. Four worksheets provided challenges to teach and reinforce in each area.

Skills-vocabulary development, spelling, sentence structure and decoding.

Groups 2 and 3:

Students completed the 5 paragraph essay outline of The Writing Process on the topic: How did you take a disappointment and turn it in your favor?

Students were then assigned an essay on “Thailand” to edit.

Skills: 5-step Writing Process using an outline, editing.

Ancient Civilizations

Today, class took a trip back in time to ancient Egypt! We dove into the fascinating world of pharaohs and pyramids, but instead of just reading about it, we got a full sensory experience. We imagined the smells and smelled the smells that would have filled the air (not all of them pleasant!), then learned about the Egyptians' amazing mummification process. To really get hands-on, we became junior embalmers and mummified our own... hot dogs! Now we wait with bated breath to see what treasures (or maybe leathery treats) await us when we crack open those tombs!

Forensic Science

We solved the case of the unidentified bones! Recalling all of the differences we learned in last week’s class between the male and female skeletal system, young and old, we were able to find a match from a missing persons report. Now, Sue can rest in peace. We ended class with a very upbeat trivia game on the skeletal system, from an archaeological standpoint. The girls against boys played a tough round, but in the end, it was a tie!

Wednesday

Morning Gathering

This morning, we set our sights on the sun! We kicked off the day with a discussion about the amazing phenomenon of solar eclipses. To prepare for the next celestial spectacle, we got crafty and created our very own solar eclipse viewers. Now we're all geared up to safely witness the sun in a whole new light!

Marine Biology

Move over Ms. Frizzle, this week our students climbed aboard the Magic Raising Delco Submarine! We traveled through each pelagic zone, exploring all the different marine life, until we reached the deepest depths of our great ocean's trenches! We began our journey exploring the Intertidal zone, and all the amazing sea creatures that must adapt to both water and land environments while the tides shift. We then explored the Epipelagic zone, or the sunlight zone! In this zone, 90% of our marine life reside, and the only zone where photosynthesis is possible. Next stop, the Mesopelagic zone, or the twilight zone! After running into a not-so-friendly giant squid, we sped off into the Bathypelagic zone, or the midnight zone! Virtually no light reaches this zone. Also, the pressure in these depths of the ocean is so great, if it were not for special marine technology, we would be crushed! After observing some of the amazing, bioluminescent creatures, we entered THE ABYSS (or abyssopelagic zone)! We are now about 25,000 feet deep! This zone is home to the dumbo octopus, the tripod fish, basket stars, sea pigs, sea spiders, and many other strange looking creatures! As dark, cold, and eerie as it is in this area, we couldn't leave without visiting the most mysterious zone of all, the hadopelagic zone, or the trench zone! There are over 50 trenches on Earth and still much to be discovered within them! The pressure down here would feel like 100 elephants standing on our heads! Join us next week for our next expedition as we take a closer look at marine invertebrates!

Energy 101

Our focus was on Sound this week. We elaborated on sounds and frequency as a means to shift our experience through awareness.

We completed somatic techniques of relaxation through jumping, wiggling, shoulder pumps (lymphatic movement) and a thymus exercise, where you create a vibration on the thymus like a gorilla to stimulate its ability to assist in immunity.

We explored sound through listening to a musical heavy metal song and then a relaxing meditation song to experience how each of those sounds impacted our moods.

We played drums and sound bowls at the end of the day to learn that music comes from all over the world and is part of each culture.

Lastly, everyone experienced a restorative sound bowl session so that they could experience soothing earth frequencies that calm the central nervous system naturally.

If anyone has questions, do not hesitate to reach out. I am super excited and honored to work with your kids in helping them learn about their capabilities and different methods to relax and understand their creative potential; their amazingness.

Sculpting & Art

This week group 2&3 learned about relief sculpture and started to create a relief sculpture of an eye.  Group 1 learned how to make punch pots and turned them into animals.