Introducing the OCS food drive!

Last week, Jen's class started to put together a food drive for the entire school.  What a great opportunity for us to pull together as a community to help our wider community!  The kids are really dedicated to gathering food and resources.  Today, Jen's class wrote some informational fliers for families.  Each flier was written by a different group, so look out for more information in the newsletter and also at the Parent Meeting.

Here is the first flier:

Dear families of OCS,

We are having a food drive!

We would appreciate 3 medium sized boxes, 1 large box, we are collecting nonperishable food such as …

• Canned
• Dried
• powdered
• boxed

we would also appreciate hygeine products such as…

• Soap
• Shampoo/conditioner
• Napkins
• Paper cups
• Toilet paper

&

• Tissues

Thank you!

OCS

By Owen, Emma and Alexis

Turkeys, Queek and Catapults!

Where did November go?  It seems to have flown by!  If it weren't for the sun setting at 4:24 (that's right, 4:24!!!!), I would hardly believe that it's December already!  Inspired by the Thanksgiving holiday, we spent time reflecting on our lives and the many things we are thankful for!  We have so many things to be thankful for and it was nice to stop and take some time to recognize this!  

Thankful Turkeys!  See some of the things we are thankful for!

Fall Trees!

Numbers galore!  We are just about finished with our "number sense" unit in Math.  We have most recently been focusing on number writing (which way does that 3 face?), recognizing numbers and ordering numbers.  "OOPS!" has been a favorite game for many!  To play you start with a stack of number cards...maybe 1 to 10 or 1 to 20 or perhaps 1 to 100, counting by 10's or 5's!  Here come's the fun part...you accidentally drop all of your cards, mixing up the order...OOPS!  Now, it's time to get those cards back in order!  Fun, fun!  I was quite impressed to see that much of the math we've been working on was able to be easily transferred to paper...with a bit of enthusiasm and hard work, our first set of math worksheets were a success!  Yay!

OOPS!

Race to 100, using base 10 blocks!

Carefully working on her number book!

We are busy authors during Writing Workshop...this has truly become a favorite part of the week for some...I have even had requests from some to write instead of playing games...sure!  Some of us focus on getting letters written on our page, others focus on stretching out words and writing as many sounds as they can, while others focus on creating stories that have a beginning, middle and end.  It has been rewarding for students to feel the sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing a book and reading it to our class!  We steadily move forward in Phonics Centers, a time of games, worksheets, picture sorts, word ladders, word wallets, alphabet puzzles, handwriting...To keep things interesting, centers vary from week to week, although the focus of each of the 3 stations remains consistent: practicing handwriting, learning/practicing a new phonics concept, and reviewing  past phonics concepts.  Currently some focus on learning beginning consonants, others are just beginning to learn the sh and ch digraphs, while the last group is focusing on word families for each of the baby (short) vowels (_et, _eg, _en).   

You may have noticed (or not noticed, as the case may be!) a lack of theme work in your child's Thursday pack!  I have been saving all of the work, which will soon be placed in a "lap book" and will be ready to share at the upcoming portfolio share!  Our time in the MIddle Ages continues to be an interesting and fruitful learning experience!  Recent explorations have provided insight into the types of games kids played way back then (Surprisingly, these games still have quite a bit of appeal today!  I think marbles may actually make a come back!)...see if your child can describe some of the games to you!

Playing Queek is so much fun!

Ready for a big game of CHECKERS!

Aside from games, we've learned about the medicinal herbs of the time (I have had many requests for mint tea to soothe aching bellies in the past couple of weeks!), heraldry, chivalry codes (we even wrote our own chivalry codes!), catapults, and tried our hand at drawing castles!  We let our creative juices flow as we created stories in small groups that took place in the Middle Ages.  Each group chose 3 words that had to somehow be incorporated into their story!  What could you create with the words unicorn, drawbridge and crown or princess, falcon and catapult?  Jen's class took on the project of learning to make ink from oak galls, as they did in the Middle Ages.  Friends from this class taught us about the process and shared some of their ink with us so that we could write our names!  Writing in the Middle Ages sure involved a lot of work!   Check out Jen's post Oak Galls and Catapults, oh my! to read about their experiment! 

Castles and Shields...each of the symbols on the shields represents a specific trait...Ask your child to explain!

We had so much fun learning to make catapults from our friends in Jen's class!

                                     

As I take time to reflect on the things that I am thankful for in my life, it is clear to me that one of the things I am most thankful for is this community.  I LOVE getting to know all of you, and I especially love sharing my days with your wonderful children.  I am so lucky to have the opportunity to learn and grow and be creative with such amazing people!  

Oak Galls and Catapults, oh my!

Today my class completed our month-long science experiment creating medieval ink from oak galls.  We started out with a couple of buckets of oak galls collected by one of our younger friends' parents.  This was a pretty involved project, and our science will lead into a really beautiful art project quite soon. 

First we squashed the oak galls with enough water that the powder released would stay wet and not airborne.  After that, we mixed the galls thoroughly into 5 identical batches. 

They were really lovely before we squashed them.

They still look pretty lovely in these jars...

Oooh, don't get too close!

We kept track of each step of the way.

Day 8 we separated the batches and introduced different variables to 4 batches.  We kept 1 control batch.

Just before separating the batches.

We separated the batches in this manner:  Batch A we kept just the way it was.  Batch B had iron added to it.  Batch C had iron and vinegar added.  Batch D had iron and heat added.  Batch E had iron, heat and vinegar added.  We created hypotheses about what we thought would happen to the batches, which batch we thought would would turn out the best, and why. 

We let them sit, stirring occasionally, for another week and 1/2.  We tested the color of each batch often.

Once our batches had had a chance to react to the different variables (21 days), we began to strain them and tested them one more time.  We decided that the batches with heat and chemical change worked the best, but that the batch with heat, chemical AND acid change was the best by far. 

drip, drip, drip...

Jen says, "ouch!  Don't accidentally dunk your fingers in the hot ink!  Oh hey, look, it works really well!"

Watch this space for images of our Book of Hours, later on.  In the meantime...

While we were conducting our science experiment in Theme, we were learning about angles in Math.  We used our knowledge of angles to construct and test tetrahedral catapults.  What a fun project (educational, too)!

Okay, so we'll need 25 sticks, and a lot of tape...

We'll need a long flinging arm and a source of tension (rubber bands).

It's important to measure each stick so the tetrahedron is equilateral.

They turned out great!

Nisqually Reach Estuary

On the 2nd of November, we went on a field trip to the Nisqually Reach Estuary.

When we arrived, we explored the Nature Center.

So many interesting things in the tanks!

Pondering crabs and sea stars.

So many shells!

There was SO MUCH to see at the Nature Center!

All of the cases held something amazing.

 



































































Our guide happened to be the director of the Nature Center.  He gave a great, interactive talk about Nisqually Reach and what is special about it.  We learned a lot about the life that lives in an estuary, and how important it is to keep organisms and pieces of the environment within the same estuary zone.

The speech was riveting!

Splash zone, high tide, mid tide, low tide, sub zone.  All of these small regions hold different kinds of organisms that are specialized to that region.  We also learned about how estuaries are created where fresh water flows into a larger body of salt water.

Our guide brings a critter from one of the tanks...what is it?

It's a Dungeness crab!

Touch with one finger on the carapace and you won't be pinched!

Same with our friend the sea star.  You can't see it in the picture, but it is snacking on an oyster.

After the talk, we headed to the beach to do a short organism survey.  

We found quite a few small crabs.

Some were very tiny.

We found seaweed, barnacles, tiny snails, and some small mussels.

We regrouped to see what had been found.

Our guide told us all about the different organisms we found.

So much seaweed!  (Jen got hungry!)

The largest crab we found was no longer alive, but still had working mouth parts.  Neat!

We had a great time, and I hope to go back some time in the Spring to see how the estuary changes with the seasons!