Volunteers needed for Friendsgiving Pie Day. See the home page for a link to sign up
Volunteer needed for our Readers Tasting Table on Tuesday, November 28th. Please email me if you would like to help.
Please see the "Research a Modern Scientist" page. Students can earn a bonus point for each scientist they research. It's a terrific way to learn about amazing people who are making a good difference in our world today!
Parents and Students,
Have an enjoyable weekend. Please email me anytime if you have questions or concerns. Thank you for all you do at home to teach your student! We love our Davinci Families and want to assist you in providing a unique education for your student.
Love,
Kristine Nichols
Thank you for sharing your love of "Harry Potter" books.
Thank you to Erin McKee (Jamison's Mom) and Kady Walker (Nora's Mom) for volunteering to help this past month for our Reader's Tasting Table. The students enjoyed this fun way to celebrate reading! Great job to all our 4th Graders for reading a book a month. It's time to choose a new book for November. Enjoy reading! Our "Tasting Table" for November will be:
Tuesday, November 28 A Volunteer needed! Please email me if you would like to help.
Wednesday November 29 Erin Fonoti (Olivia's Mom)
Thank you for sharing your love of "The Lord of The Rings" books.
*Assignment due next week: see the information below
Parents,
Students have taken their opinion writing draft home, enclosed in an envelope along with a checklist. Kindly review your student's initial draft for errors and utilize the checklist as a reference. While you can assist students in enhancing their drafts, please encourage them to make modifications independently to maintain their originality. *The final copy will be written in class next week, November 7th & 8th.
Standard(s) 4.1.4: Engage in argument from evidence based on patterns in rock layers and fossils found in those layers to support an explanation that environments have changed over time. Emphasize the relationship between fossils and past environments. Examples could include tropical plant fossils found in Arctic areas and rock layers with marine shell fossils found above rock layers with land plant fossils. (ESS1.C)
I can identify rock layers and observe that the earth has changed over time.
I can learn about rock layers and the effects of weathering and erosion in the Grand Canyon.
I can identify rock layers and the fossils that are in them.
I can analyze pictures of fossil layers and discover that the earth has changed over time.
I can create a model of rock layers to observe rock and fossil layers in the earth.
Take a field trip to Wyoming!
Some of the world's best preserved fossils are found in the flat-topped ridges of southwestern Wyoming's cold sagebrush desert. Fossilized fishes, insects, plants, reptiles, birds, and mammals are exceptional for their abundance, variety, and detail of preservation. Most remarkable is the story they tell of ancient life in the warm, wet environment in and around a freshwater lake.
I ♥️ visiting this place! I recommend the amazing visitor center and the hike to the quarry! - Mrs. Nichols
Generation Genius is a great resource to review our science lesson from this past week. See the link below!
What you will learn from this video?
Rock layers provide evidence of Earth’s landscapes from the past.
The oldest rock layers are at the bottom and the newest layers are at the top.
The location of fossils in rock layers provides evidence of earth’s past landscapes.
Most of the Grand Canyon's exposed rocks belong to the third category: sedimentary rock. When mineral grains are eroded from surface materials, transported by water or wind, and eventually laid down on the ground or seafloor, a loose deposit of sediments forms. Over time, these soft sediments are compacted by mounting pressure and heat from subsequent overlying layers. Squeezed of their water, the sediment grains are cemented together, or lithified, to form solid—though brittle—rock.
The telltale feature of sedimentary rocks is horizontal bedding, or layering, that ranges in thickness from millimeters to several meters. As a rule, deeper layers are older than those above them because they were deposited first. Because sediments form from different minerals and may be deposited on land or in water, there are many kinds of sedimentary rocks. Sand becomes sandstone, mud becomes shale, and the calcified remains of marine organisms become limestone.
Scientists learn a great deal from analyzing the progression of sedimentary layers. For example, successive limestone and shale layers indicate that sediments were first laid down in a marine environment and then in a coastal swamp environment. The presence of limestone layers in the Grand Canyon's strata suggests that shallow tropical seas periodically covered what is today a desert environment.
How can this be? Global sea level rises or falls as glaciers and ice sheets melt or freeze. When tides rise, oceans flood the land. Marine deposits settle to the seafloor and later turn into limestone. When the oceans retreat, muddy or sandy deposits typically form. These lithify into shale or sandstone.
The advance and retreat of Earth's oceans explains how ancient coral reef formations can be found in the middle of deserts, whale bones can be found in Pakistan, and, as is featured in this video segment, nautiloid impressions can be found in Arizona.
Discussion Questions:
Why is the Grand Canyon such a valuable site for geologists studying the history of the changing Earth?
Where are the oldest rocks in the Grand Canyon found? Why?
What evidence indicates a vast, shallow sea covered the area that includes the Grand Canyon?
How could scientists know the age of the rock layer that contained the fossil nautiloid?
Research what other fossils might be found in the Redwall Limestone of the Grand Canyon, which formed about 335 million years ago.
Saint-Saëns's Danse macabre, Op. 40, is based on the French legend that Death packs a fiddle and comes to play at midnight on Halloween, causing the skeletons in the cemetery to crawl out of the ground for their annual graveyard dance party.
🎵 I love listening to this instrumental piece!
-Mrs. Nichols
played by, Anastasia & Liubov Gromoglasova
