Science: Volcano and Earthquake demonstrations

Grade Level: Elementary

Objective: To further analyze fault movement and the geology of our region.

Earthquake:

To simulate the fault activity that causes earthquakes and mountains, K and I took a two piece yogurt box and filled it with dirt.  We demonstrated to the second graders how when the "fault" is pushed together earth gets pushed up, creating mountains but when the "fault" is pulled apart a gap, gorge, or valley is formed.

 We also did a classic class volcano demonstration using baking soda, vinegar, dish soap, water, and food coloring.  Although this activity does not show how volcanoes work, it entertained and engaged the students, opening up the class for more conversation about volcanoes.

The Giver: Career Cruising

Grade Level: 6

Objective: To reflect upon the career assignment process in The Giver in order to further understand and analyze the world Jonas and "the Giver" inhabit.

Today K and I finished reading The Giver.  We both felt a combination of excitement and disappointment finishing the book.  Reading The Giver aloud has been a highlight of most days for both of us.  We loved how complicated the ending was, but we wanted to know more.

As an imaginative exercise and a reward for all the hard work K has put in, we did an activity called Career Cruising to accompany the reading of our last chapter.  Career Cruising software is used by our school district's high school counseling department to give older students vocational direction.  K and I used it today because he's 12 and 12 year-old students in The Giver are deemed adults and assigned a career based on their interests.  K got his results back (among them: stuntman, dancer, gardener, zookeeper, and musician) and imagined what it would be like to be assigned such a career in a reflective writing exercise.

Happy Halloween

My costume:

Social Studies: Day of the Dead, Halloween, All Saints/All Souls

Grade Level: 6

Objective: Student will learn about the cultural context of three holidays that happen this week

Today we:

-Read a series of articles from National Geographic 

-Watched a Travel Channel special about the Day of the Dead

-Watched a clip from the History channel about Halloween's Celtic roots

-Looked at pictures and video footage from an All Saints Day celebration in Krakow

-Created a poster comparing and contrasting the three holidays, looking for cross cultural similarities and patterns

Becoming a Redwood

Grade Level: High School

Objective: Students will begin thinking about contemporary explorers and how their ideas and beliefs relate the writers we've been reading so far this semester

Today we:
-Reviewed writers we've read so far this semester, searching for connections between texts
-Analyzed Dana Gioia's poem "Becoming a Redwood," searching for both evocative lines and
philosophical connections to other environmental writers and texts
-Watched Richard Preston's Ted Talk: The mysterious lives of giant trees
-Looked at photographs from the National Geographic article the students are reading for homework: Daring. Defiant. Free. A new generation of superclimbers is pushing the limits in Yosemite.

Kitchen Geology

Grade: Elementary

Objective: Students will learn more about the composition of the Earth through a series of hands-on sensory activities.

Materials: Twix bar, hard-boiled egg, apple, crackers, bread, world maps, BBC Plate Tectonic Activity

Today we:
-Talked about the definition of "geology" breaking the world down to "geo" earth, "ology" study
-Looked at a world map for evidence of continental drift
-Completed BBC's Plate Tectonic Activity
-Cut into an apple, discussing it as a model for the crust, mantle, and core of the earth
-Used a hard-boiled egg as a model for the crust, mantle, and core of the earth, cracking the egg-shell to help us imagine Earth's plates
-Completed a variation of the "Discovery Center" Layers of the Earth Activity  using a Twix bar
-Discussed the locations of plate boundaries and the geologic activity that often accompanies plate boundaries
-Examined the "convergent" boundary west of us in Washington, demonstrating the subduction caused by the meeting of the dense thin oceanic plate (modeled through a cracker) and the thicker airier continental plate (modeled through a slice of bread.)  In our model we slipped a cracker underneath a piece of bread to show how the oceanic plate pushes the continental plate up, causing mountain ranges like the North Cascades

Autumn Happiness

Lately my days have been filled with pleasant things too small to blog about but worth remembering.  For example..

-Raking leaf piles on the playground during recess 

-Reading picture books aloud to two younger-than-school-age kids while their mother tutors math at school

-Reading The Giver aloud with K., drinking caramel apple cider and talking about Distopian/Utopian literature

-Going running with K in the afternoon, getting exercise and sunshine while we talk about language arts, social studies, and science

photo taken at the Barter Faire in Tonasket, WA