Semester 3- Week 6

Photos

Tuesday

Morning Gathering

This morning we took some time to reflect on all the beautiful moments we shared with Ms. Lorraine, our inspirational writing teacher. Ms. Lorraine is leaving a few weeks earlier than our semester's end in order to pursue a summer position. We wish her the best and cant wait for her to visit us again!

She has inspired many students in their creative writing and confidence through unique skill sets and relatable topics. They are even experiencing the process of a collaborative research paper!

Writing

Group 1:

Students worked on complete sentences by learning "subjects" and identifying predicates. A second assignment introduced using "direct quotes" in a sentence. The lesson ended with prompts: a written prompt and a verbal prompt. 

Skills: mechanics, sentence structure, writing and dialogue.

Group 2:

First, the class completed a brief editing piece and then continued work on their research writing. The class collaboratively decided on the paper's topic, "Pet ownership makes life happier and healthier" and also developed the final thesis/introduction, "Owning a pet has both mental and physical benefits." The students decided that both facets needed to be presented based on the plethora of material available. To end the session, the class agreed to the final layout/presentation of the paper.

Skills: decision-making, collaboration, editing, writing process.

Ancient Civilizations

This week, Mesopotamia! Imagine sprawling cities between the Tigris and Euphrates, buzzing with inventors and artists waiting to share their secrets.

Our Mesopotamian adventure wasn't just about dusty dates (which we talked about). We unlocked the mysteries of cuneiform, the world's first writing system. Picture wedge-shaped symbols pressed into clay tablets, whispers of history preserved for millennia! We became mini-scribes for a day, writing our names in cuneiform.

But the fun didn't stop there! To get a feel for Mesopotamian style, we embarked on a jewelry-making project inspired by cuneiform. Imagine adorning pendants or beads with these cool symbols, leaving their mark on our own personal treasures. We designed our own chain creations, then used the stamps to press cuneiform patterns onto them. It wasn't just crafting; it was a way to channel their artistic spirit and celebrate their innovative designs.

Heads up, family! To wrap up the semester, our class will be transforming into a living museum of Ancient Civilizations! Students will become experts on a person, event, or scene from their chosen civilization. They'll create costumes, props, and even deliver short presentations in character! This is a great chance for your student to showcase their learning and get creative. Encourage them to start thinking about which fascinating figure or moment from history sparks their interest! More details about the project here. https://www.raisingdelco.com/post/live-wax-museum-ancient-civilizations

Forensic Science

Animals are super smellers! Our students learned how useful forensic dogs can be in criminal investigations. While humans rely more heavily on their sense of sight, many animals rely on other senses as well as sight. For example, dogs' sense of smell is 200 times as sensitive as people. This is why dogs (particularly Labradors & German Shepherds) have become so important in police work. Dogs are trained to give either a passive response (to sit), or aggressive response (bark and scratch). Dogs are commonly used by police in four types of searches: fire scene searches (search for fire accelerants), vehicle searches (illegal substances), crowd searches, and area searches. In the lab students were given a background story, and an objective. The story involved a barn fire, with the objective to search for any fire accelerants used in the incident. Our forensic dogs, I mean students, sniffed through many containers of natural potpourri (pretending to be accelerants such as Kerosene, Lacquer, and paint thinner), in order to find a match with the substance found on the scene. We had many winners! Excellent work pups!

Wednesday

Morning Gathering

This week, our students became painters with wool! We embarked on a journey exploring the world of 2D needle felting, a technique that allows you to create beautiful pictures using wool fibers.

Marine Biology

This week we explored the world of sea turtles! On Monday, some students joined the co-op field trip to the Wetlands Institute (please see field trip album)! During this trip, students were able to hold and release many different types of sea turtles! In class, we discovered the differences between Turtles (live in the water), Tortoises (live on land), and Terrapins (live in both). Categorizing them all as turtles is also acceptable in the world of science.

Students learned some interesting facts about sea turtles traveling long distances for both feeding and nesting grounds in a seemingly featureless ocean, with no landmarks to help them find their way. Some migratory routes are even transoceanic, traveling across an entire ocean and back! Amazingly, female turtles return faithfully to nest on the very beach where they were born! Scientists are still not exactly sure how they are able to do this, but have discovered that sea turtles possess an ability to use positional information in the Earth's magnetic field as a kind of navigational map that can be used to guide movements toward specific goals.

Northern Diamondback Terrapins are the only brackish water turtles in the United States, including the Jersey shore. These unique turtles prefer to live their entire lives in salt marshes, tidal rivers, and bays.

Due to massive reduction of salt marsh and sandy nesting habitats, the destruction of dune-beach areas, and alteration of water composition due to ditching, dredging and channelization, the state of New Jersey has listed this species as, "a species of special concern" and "threatened species" in surrounding states. Poorly planned development has greatly reduced the terrapin's natural habitat of tidal wetlands, and heavy summer traffic has caused an increase in the number of females struck by cars.

Places like the Wetlands Institute are making a huge impact on turtle conservation and pushing for stricter laws and restrictions against land developers. They are creating ways to preserve this species and include many volunteer programs for all to assist in nesting grounds, tagging, raise and release, research, road alterations, etc.

Lastly, a much bigger hurdle is threatening our entire underwater ecosystem. The wind turbine projects scheduled to take over our entire coastline, come at a devastating cost to all local marine life. Our beaches could essentially transition from family beach and fishing economies to industrial utility plants. There are many online groups asking for assistance in protecting our coastlines, and all that inhabit these precious and fragile environments.

Energy 101

Our group explored Reiki a bit more. Reiki is a Japanese healing modality around for centuries. We explored that everything from our food, to our animals, to our earth can receive this vibration of love. Reiki - “Rei” means God's light and wisdom and “ki/ Chi” means energy, life force energy, blood flow, oxygen, prana - moves in all directions (up/down/outward/inward and spirals). We are like a Radio station; we can tune into the frequency we resonate in the world. Like a guitar string or harp or violin string.

Reflexology points on the feet - Heart, Pituitary, Eye, Ear, Lung, Chest

Guided Meditation - Representing the energetic properties we have; our electromagnetic field.

Taught them the Reiki points - eyes, ears, neck, top of head, heart, upper belly, lower belly, back and back of neck.

We will continue to practice these self healing points, share with our friends next week and will sample a vibrant juice made with love and organic, fresh ingredients and how our food too can impact our wellness.

Art & Sculpting

This week Art class students did some fun painting. They learned about tints and tones and did a monochromatic painting of underwater scene with marine animals. Students also learned about creating perspective with size, and backlighting creating shadow on forms.