10/5

SCIENCE:
We started something new this week. The students have been learning their responsiblities for their TableTeams and today we added a class leadership role. Each week one student will lead for the day. This includes opening in prayer, leading the flag salute, reading the Geo Clue Card and the option of bringing a word for the class (encouragment, scripture, or whatever is on their heart). I will be keeping an eye out for humble leaders and calling on one student to rise up for the following week. I've already got my eye on a handful of students who have shown leadership in the class. Next week will be Jax. Today, Miah G. took the reins and she set a fabulous example in all areas - way to go Miah! After prayer, we sang Happy Birthday to our October birthdays (Jackson). We reviewed our reading about the Pangea theory, highlighted the tectonic plates and then dove into our experiment. Each student was given an egg to color to look like the Earth. We then rolled the egg around until we saw the shell (crust) crack (fault lines). We discussed the theories around tectonic plates and named the closest fault line to us (San Andreas). We then cut open our eggs and noticed how it resembled the Earth's structure (shell = crust, white = mantle, yoke = core). The students recorded their findings on the "Checking it out" worksheet and tucked that behind their "Experiments" tab in their Science binders. Given the lightning storm we all got to witness last night, we took the opportunity to read a devotional about Lightning. Can you believe lightning heats up the air around it to more than 48,000 degrees (hotter than the surface of the Sun) and our powerful God created that!

Here is a video on tectonic plates if you're interesting in extending the lesson. *Note: it does mention "old" Earth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBr-D1cFmEs

GEOGRAPHY:

After our clue card led us to Australia we took off to study the oceans of the world. We started with a KWO (Know, Want to Know, Learned) while I came around and gave a passport stamp for the passport homework. The students filled in the first two categories on the KWL before reading "The Earth Is Mostly Ocean" by Allan Fowler. We had a wonderful surprise visit from Mrs. Hart (President of our Board) and her son Brendan and many students enjoyed a quick reunion. Then we flipped through a few slides to study each individual ocean. To review, the students each took a piece of our 5 ocean puzzles and worked together to complete them on the white board. Once we had them sorted out we listened to an exerpt from Charlotte Mason's "Elementary Geography" about oceans. Finally, we filled in the "L" section of our KWL by writing (or drawing) what we had learned about oceans. Feel free to check out the "Continents & Oceans" song on the Geography page. Next week, we will start with a quick 4 corners game to review some ocean facts. Miah brought a quick word for the class about her favorite Bible Verse: Jeremiah 29:11 - thanks for filling us with Truth and reminding us of the HOPE we have!

IEW:

We started with our new memory verse song and Avery read us her rough draft of "The Crow and the Peacock." Then we went out to take our class pictures. Due to the time restraints we didn't play our IEW game today as I wanted the students to feel confident in their homework for the week. Many of the students have been working SO hard on their writing and I am so proud of their grit! I plan to tweak the schedule in the upcoming weeks to give us a bit more time to play a few of the games and review. However, we did get to study the clinchers (in this case the clincher is the moral of the story) and titles (using words from the clincher) today that we will be adding to our "Belling the Cat" stories for the final draft. We also looked over the proofreading marks. The students can keep this in their notebook at home and use it revise their draft. They showed creativity and care in their rough drafts so I am confident their final drafts will be superb! Jackson finished us off by reading his rough draft as we quiet clapped for strong verbs. I let the students know that next week if they have all 3 memory verses memorized, I will be giving an extra punch in the card.

Hope you have a wonderful week! Feel free to reach out with any questions.