This week in Our Big Backyard…
So, Alphas knew that our Earth has layers and that they get hotter and hotter the closer you get to its center. So we acted out what it might be like to be some gooey magma deep inside our planet…
Here we are…all comfy and flowing down towards the center…but wait – it’s getting kind of hot…
Yeow! Get me off this hot thing!
Magma gets excited and flows away from the hottest spot – but them what happens? We learned that it bumped into the solid crust layer. If the crust was too thick and hard the magma had to turn away but…
Sometimes magma finds weak places in the Earth’s crust…
…when pressure builds…
…it pours out as lava – or in this case, Loralai-va!!!
We learned that scientists believe that all the water on our planet came from all the steam released during early planet formation AND from getting hit by thousands of icy asteroids and comets.
After thousands of years of rain and comet bombardment, our Earth’s crust was under water.
When magma was able to find weak spots in the crust, they tended to stay weak and these places became known as plates. And just like our plates, the Earth’s move around too — but they tend to move pretty slowly.
The land above the water is connected to a plate and the water surrounding it gives it a shape.
The land around water gives IT a shape. We call these different shapes landforms.
Making lakes…
Making islands…
Making straits…
Making isthmuses…isthmii??!
Making a peninsula! Which was a happy accident!
Then we made Landform Mobiles!
It’s hard to keep a “strait” face…
Sometimes pressure below the crust will build up and force the plate to move in certain directions. Since the Earth’s plates move slowly, scientists can see where the plates are and even tell which direction they are going!
They called them “Tectonic” which comes from a Greek word for carpenter or builder. Here, Alphas helped “build’ some examples of tectonic plate boundaries – where two plates meet.
Divergent plates move away from each other…
Convergent plates smash together; sometimes they buckle and fold the crust upward into mountains, and sometimes they slip below one plate and cause friction and create volcanoes!
Edie’s showing us a “Transform” plate boundary that
moves sideways past each other – like it does in California where Ms. Kim and Ms. Eliza grew up!
The Alpha plate boundary is the mightiest boundary of all!!!!!!
This week in Language Arts…
Ms. Eliza’s group…
Nn and Ll were our letters this week. We learned how to make a narwhal out of the letter N…ask your alpha to show you how!
Among the many things we did…we read a very fun book titled LMNO Peas. It’s amazing all the things peas can do! We made our own peas…come and visit our LMNO peas gallery to see what our peas are up to!
We played alphabet bingo with all of the letters we’ve learned so far
And on Poetry Thursdays we read The Sugar Plum Tree by Eugene Field.
We drew our own sugar plum trees.
Ms. Kim’s Group…
We worked on digraphs, and reading, and diagraphs, and writing, and we had our first check-in and we ROCKED IT!
This week in Math…
Ms. Kim’s Group…
We made apple sauce! YAY!!! Autumn!!! We explored dividing things evenly between two people. We found a pattern in our numbers! We played Treehouse Odd/Even together and with friends. Our hands were so busy it was hard to take pictures this week!
Ms. Eliza’s group…
We started our week with 100 chart riddles…
I have 2 tens and 4 ones – What am I? I’m more than 30 and less than 33. I’m an odd number. And many more!
Our place value study is now in the 30’s. To understand the value of 36 (or any number) we need to practice by building it, seeing it, visualizing it and expanding it. We’re moving through the number chart by 10’s to fully experience the value of the numbers 1-120. We played more doubles games, some of us played Make 10 Solitaire, and we partnered up to add dominoes to see if the sums were even or odd.
This Week’s Reflections…
- We talked about integrity this week and how important it is to our community as well as to our own lives. We told a story about a former student who is an amazing athlete, musician, and very capable student – but he he didn’t start that way! But through all his difficulties, he never lied, he always owned up to his responsibilities, he always made amends; he set goals for himself and he achieved them. It took a lot of integrity (as well as a lot of other life skills) and we stook by him through thick and thin, just like we plan to stick by all of our Alphas! (stories were told with the permission of the parents)
- Special Tuesday Morning! We put verbal “language” in Language Arts today: speaking and listening
- We focused on Shipe Park Day!
- We focused on Shipe Park Day!
All the Alphas knew who Mr. Shipe was, but not everyone had been to a Shipe Park Day; each table team had an “expert” or two who would explain what it was and how we would get there. The “novices” were to listen carefully.
Then we came back to circle to see what they learned!
It took a few trips…but everyone learned a LOT.
- We Dropped Everything and Read(fondly known as D.E.A.R.)
- We exercised our critical thinking skills in math in teams too! We pretended we were going on a 3-month trip away from home and we could only take 3 things with us in our backpacks. Our parents would be with us – they would take care of all the essential things like food and stuff. We had to think about what we might miss after a few weeks…we had to think about what we might get tired of after a few weeks. And then, following specific instructions, build a backpack – and draw and cut out those items and put them inside. IF and when Alphas completed the challenge, the could make gifts for their friends and put them in their backpacks.
In other news…
Our First Trip to Shipe Park was a Tremendous Success except that our students were so very, very tired. In keeping with our Post Shipe Park Tradition, we listened to records. The story we start with is by Woody Guthrie called Abiyoyo. The students lie down on the rug and listen quietly.
This is our Alpha-version of Where’s Waldo? Play spot the student!
and there’s MORE…
Sharing fossils we found on our adventures last week…
Class Helper placing a leaf on our tree
for a student who
demonstrated A LOT of resilience and resourcefulness
perusuing last year’s yearbook…
cruising the playground…
& celebrating another birthday trip around the sun
