Campus Picnics and Slime Mixtures
/We are taking full advantage of the sunny weather and our location on Pacific’s beautiful campus. We’ve been enjoying our snacks and lunches picnic-style in the center of campus. We love eating under the giant, shady trees while listening to the birds chirping overhead. Our picnics are often followed by a rousing game of freeze tag or other chasing game. In our outdoor classroom we’ve been designing obstacle courses to test our strength, stamina, and coordination.
Our budding chemists, led by Audrey, recently expressed interest in creating different types of slime. During classroom choice time this week students used their knowledge of fractions, solutions, and properties of matter to concoct multiple batches of slime. Our scientists were particularly fascinated by how the amount of borax added to the mixtures resulted in slime with different thickness and flexibility. Several students returned to this center multiple times throughout the week to test their theories and experiment with glue, water, coloring, and borax.
One of my favorite things about children is their natural sense of wonder and their endless curiosity. In the Otter community we spend multiple hours outside each day. This provides us with the opportunity to make many keen observations. This week we noticed different types of bees pollinating the plants around campus. We used posters and field guides to identify the bees. We noticed that our mason bees have been filling new holes in the Cedar Classroom structure with eggs, pollen, and mud. These holes are outside of their mason bee house. We noticed that birds made a nest in one of our bird houses, and we believe there may be chicks in the nest. We’ve been thrilled to discover that our tadpoles are rapidly developing into tiny froglets. One student brought in fossils for us to examine and another family sent in cicada exoskeletons for us to examine. How lucky we are to be surrounded by the beauty of nature!
Although our official engineering unit has come to a close, our engineers continue to design egg drop contraptions and other structures during choice time. Last week several engineers tested their egg contraptions outside while standing on the boulders. Others continue to experiment with new Magnatile structures or Rube Goldberg designs.
We got to celebrate two birthdays in the last week. We celebrated our birthday students by singing, presenting them with a birthday book, admiring their baby photos, and eating popsicles outside.
