"Can you hear me now, or do I need to leave a trail?"

"Go that way! That way!
Wait go left! Your different left, I mean right!"

       This week, we had a wonderful time diving into our material with great hands-on activities! In math we continue to use a lot of manipulatives to discover more about multiplication and division concepts. My students are beyond excited about the concepts and working to improve their previous accomplishments. I actually have a waiting list for who can check out our class sets of flashcards (I only have 2 multiplication and 1 division).

Interphase, Mitosis, Cytokinesis, Woo Hoo!

        In 5th grade science we have made family genetic trait trees! We asked questions of our relatives and displaying them on a family tree to track where our genetic traits come from! We also made 3 dimensional posters to show the process of a cell’s cycle of reproduction through mitosis! The students did a great job on these posters! In 4th grade we acted out echolocation through working with a partner and trying to find our way through a predetermined path around the classroom that only their seeing partner knew. Today we also worked to represent how ants find food and then help to tell this to other ants to find this same food. The first lab activity had one student come into the class to find Nit Wit (my stuffed “slam it” bug). Then in just a few seconds that student must convey where it is to the next students only using motions. The second student then goes to find the bug and then motion to the next person waiting in the hall. Each of these students is timed to see how fast they can find the “food” (Nit Wit). Then we try it again and this time we use pieces of paper as makers to guide the next student. These papers were to represent pheromones. We noticed as a class that it was far easier with the pheronomes to help the next ant navigate to the food!

Echolocationin the style of Miss Weber's
4th grade class!

Prayer Requests:
- We have bed bugs again! This time they are in my roommate’s bed! We also have an increase in bugs as this is the highpoint in the bug season. Despite numerous precautions, we are still struggling with this problem. Please pray that we are physically safe during this time.

- Please pray for our students, we have wonderful students but as at any school many of our students struggle a lot with different challenges.

- The end of the school year is fast approaching. Please pray we get the work needed done and finish this semester well!

Firsts:

- First time given cocaine from a student as a gift! Okay so it is really Coca Tea and made from the leaves that are used to make cocaine. No I had not had any of the tea to drink, still it was very surprising to discover it!

- First time doing Karaoke in Spanish! I didn’t even know the song! That was a lot of fun and very challenging!

- First time seeing Halls cough drop (which is actually considered by most as candy here!) that is Sprite flavored!

 - First two times this week, that I really almost got in bus accidents! No please don’t worry too much we are all fine. One bus hit the curb (or something else but my imagination keeps telling me to think of it as the curb) on a narrow street as turning and lost something out the back. As we still kept driving I can only assume it was not too detrimental. The second came as another truck screeched to a halt less than an inch from the side of our bus in an intersection! Thankfully I was on the other side of the bus!

We also did a lab to see try out how different organisms acquire
their food and nutrients. This student had to be a fish eating
 pasta out of a bowl of water!