Life Science

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Even though we’ve been primarily focused on exploring the states of matter and chemistry, we continue to be fascinated by the life science all around us. At our science table we’ve been watching our painted lady caterpillars emerge from eggs and grow daily. In our outdoor classroom we’ve been watching our mason bees return to their house to lay eggs in the tubes. Several of the tubes are now filled with eggs and mud! We’ve also been noticing birds in our birdhouses and cabbage white butterflies in the meadow. This morning we noticed tiny lupine seedlings in our outdoor classroom too.

This week in writer’s workshop we are working on increasing our independence in writing. Student authors are learning how to use peers as resources and how to continue writing for longer periods of time. Soon the class will be learning how to use a dictionary to look up how to spell words correctly. Students are also getting better at spelling on their own too. We have a new list of spelling words this week that focuses on the oa sound. In math we are reviewing many of the skills we’ve learned this year including measurement, adding and subtracting large numbers, multiplication, and telling time. Soon we will be starting a unit on money. This week a popular choice time activity is Snap Circuits. 

Ice Cream, Balloons, and Density

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Our study of matter and chemistry is in full force! Last Friday our scientists mixed solid and liquid ingredients to create ice cream by hand. They used ice and rock salt to achieve a temperature cold enough to turn a liquid mixture into a solid ice cream. Yum! This week we continued to explore chemical reactions during our balloon bottle experiments. We tried mixing different materials to create a release of CO2 gas, which filled up our balloons. Some of the materials like yeast, warm water, and sugar released CO2 slowly and the balloon took a long time to fill with air. Others like Coke and Mentos created a quick release of CO2 which led to the balloon quickly filling with air. Today during our science time we began exploring the concept of density. We made predictions and tested a variety of objects to see whether they would sink or float in water. The objects that were less dense than water, such as plastic blocks, floated. The objects that were denser than water, like the coins, sank to the bottom. It was interesting for students to see that objects of the same size can have very different densities; like a ping pong ball and a golf ball. Many students were surprised that the wooden blocks floated. Even though the blocks seemed heavy, the matter in the blocks was spread out and the blocks were less dense than the water. Tomorrow we will continue to explore the concept of density with liquids.

Happy Earth Day!

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On Earth Day we got to learn about an environmental artist named Andy Goldsworthy. He creates interesting artwork and sculptures using only natural materials he finds, while making sure not to disturb the landscape around him. We practiced showing our respect to the environment during the activity, using only materials we found around campus that were already on the ground like pinecones, rocks, leaves, sticks and fallen flower petals. We walked around campus to collect our materials and then built our designs on the steps of the UC so we could share our artwork with other Pacific community members! We had a lot of fun spending time outside celebrating Earth Day by creating beautiful artwork.

Rockets and Volcanoes

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Today we continued exploring chemical reactions. Ms. Siera filled a soda bottle rocket with vinegar and then added some baking soda. When the vinegar and baking soda interacted, a chemical reaction occurred. This reaction released carbon dioxide gas. As the carbon dioxide bubbles built up in the bottle, the pressure increased until there was enough pressure to pop the cork and launch the rocket into the sky! You can hear the excitement from our young scientists in the videos below. Afterwards, students used the play dough we made yesterday to create volcanoes. We filled the volcanoes with vinegar and baking soda. When the chemical reactions occurred in the volcanoes, the CO2 gas caused a fizzing and bubbling reaction. During this exploration our scientists made predictions, closely observed the reactions, and recorded their findings.

In other news, we were excited to discover a small bird egg in our outdoor classroom. We continued working on our math assessments and practiced our science spelling words. Pod 2 read about Sonia Sotomayor.

Flat Lolo in Paris

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Dear Otters,

It was a pleasure hosting your friend Lolo, she was a very well-behaved guest. My name is Mark, I moved to Paris 5 months ago from London so I don't know the city very well yet, but it was great that I could discover it together with Lolo!

Paris is the capital city of France, it has around 2 million inhabitants and the main language they speak is French. I am still learning to speak French but I am finding it really fun learning a new language, I make lots of mistakes but people don't mind, we always end up laughing together. I grew up speaking Italian in Reggio Emilia, Italy where Lolo just was. Tino and Janice are my parents and I speak Italian and English.

Right now I'm in Paris because I moved here for work, I design clothing for a French Fashion Brand called Hermès. I've always really enjoyed drawing and being creative, so I like this job a lot because I'm having lots of fun.

The first weeks Lolo was in Paris I took her mostly to work with me, where she got herself a dress made. I hope you like it. On the weekend I took her out to explore Paris. We left home in the morning after breakfast. It was still a bit cold but walking warmed us up. First, we walked on top of the hills to see the view of the city. From there you can see the Eiffel Tower, a famous landmark in Paris! Then we walked all across the city from the hills to the River Seine, the river of Paris. By then the sun had come out and it was nice and warm. People were out walking and enjoying the sun while social distancing. As you can see from the pictures Lolo is wearing a Beret, which is a typical French hat she bought for herself to stay warm. She is also holding a Baguette, which is the traditional bread that everyone eats in this country, she had to try it. After the long walk nothing can beat a nice French pastry! French pastries are famous worldwide, so we had a Chocolate Eclair and a Millefeuille filled with cream, then walked all the way back home. It was very nice showing around a fellow foreigner,

I don't know much about this country yet so every day is a new adventure. Hope you can someday come visit too!"Au Revoir" as they say here to say "bye" !

Mark