*Reminder: Picture day is next week! Please be photo ready (even if you aren't purchasing) with picture form and exact cash. The picture form is on the Branches website.
*One parent let me know that she found my emails in her spam folder. If you haven't recieved an email from me, you may want to check there :)
SCIENCE
Lily kicked the day off for us with a beautiful prayer and then we read our Indescribable devotional about the Creation and the Big Bang. We talked about how likely it would be that we could throw a pile of puzzle pieces in the air and they would land as finished perfect puzzle. Not possible. Not in our world where God has brought order to the chaos beginning with Creation. We discussed our reading from the week reflected on how kind our God is to have revealed to us the truth of Creation. We reviewed and signed our contracts from last week. We watched and listened to learn a bit more about the 7 continents and 5 oceans: https://video.link/w/yzg9c . Then we divided into 7 groups and each group used playdough to create one continent using a laminated image. It took a bit of dedication to really edge out the continents, but sure helped us familiarize ourselves with their shape. We took note that Antarctica looked much different than it did on the map and determined that this was because of the shape of our planet and it's position on the globe. Then, we labeled our maps with all 7 continents and 5 oceans. We colored the oceans blue and each continent a different color then filed this in our "notes" section of the Science binder. One lucky winner took home a new ring of vocabulary cards for naming all the oceans and continents! We will begin making the vocabulary words for our Science unit this week if you haven't already.
GEOGRAPHY
We started off with a little experiment to demonstrate why a map may look a little different than a globe (i.e. the Pacific Ocean is in 2 locations and Antarctica's shape seems to change). Brendan blew up a balloon and then Cora drew a few continents on it to represent our globe. We then cut it open and stretched it out so we could display it 2D like a map. Next, we experimented with a compass. We rubbed a magnet on a paperclip several times. We taped the paper clip to a small foam circle and floated it in a bowl of water. We recognized that North would be toward the mountains and indeed it slowly turned to point North. We double checked with the compass on my phone and then discussed about the natural magentic pull of our Earth. The students then took turns sharing their Hidden Country projects and boy, oh, boy was I impressed. Such hard work and creativity was put into these projects! I loved the attention to detail and the confidence in their presentations! Lastly, we discussed our Clue Card homework.
IEW
We opened our time by practicing our memory verse. It was fun to see how much more the students were comfortable with the words and confident in its meaning. God has indeed determined that this is our allotted time and this is our dwelling space. Isaac and Lily did a wonderful job using their homework KWO to narrate their passage. We were so confident in the student's ability to do the KWO that they actually wrote most of our KWO for "A Giant Leap" on the board themselves today. We took turns and discussed different options, but they truly took the wheel! Diego finished us off with a solid oral report using the outline. A few of the students are still picking up speed when it comes to writing and that is perfectly ok (we have a wide range of ages and abilities in the class). If they are giving it their best, they are going to grow! Please encourage them from home and adapt where needed for homework. You may want to have them dictate to you every other line so the writing isn't so intensive, but they can still grow in their confidence outlining.
Thank you Mrs. Freshwater for lending a helping hand today - we appreciate you! I hope you have a wonderful week! Feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns!