Cedar River Watershed

It was a beautiful fall day, perfect for seeing the rain drums, the lake bed, tree roots/stumps, and banana slugs. Also perfect for learning about Seattle's watershed and experiencing the water cycle. 

Students figuring out how much water, in gallons, that they are.

This 5 gallon water jug is the amount of water used for a one minute shower.

This 5 gallon water jug is the amount of water that some people have to carry per day for use.

"What station should we go to next?"

Station 2: Different habitats. Find the animals in the mural and stamp them in the habitat where they like to live.

Station 5: Are you water smart? A game to test how much you really know about the Cedar River Watershed.  

Listening to the rain drops and creating a beat!

Walking on Rattlesnake Lake bed.

Mr. Jeff (parent) teaching students why the tree stumps have notches in them.

Checking out the stream flowing into the lake.

"Look a dam!" "I wonder what made the dam?" 

3rd/4th grade

We enjoyed our trip to the Cedar River Watershed Education Center!

Exercise Challenge aka War!

With it being rainy and the indoor space being used for book fair, our PE teacher improvised and came up with an exercise battle using the card game "War". Our class combined with the PK/K class and taught the littles how to play!

This game allows students to practice honesty, fairness, honorable sporting behavior, and fitness skills. Exercise Battle is an energetic and exciting game, requiring a little strategy and a lot of luck. 

"3-2-1, FLIP!"

Passing out a new set of cards

"Let's flip our top card! What did you get?"

7 Wins! 14 Curl Ups

J Wins! Skip in place for 35 Roadrunners

"Which card wins? We have two aces!"

Passing out a new set of cards.

Our class sure loves mentoring our littlest students!

Periodic Table Battleship

Teaching the periodic table of elements without being monotonous can be difficult. 

So with help from Teach Beside Me and Destination Imagination we created our own periodic table battleship game using the instructions on the websites. 

It was a surprising twist to a fun game!

The purpose of this game:

~To recognize the elements and their names 
~To learn how to read the periodic table
~To have exposure to the elements and the periodic table

"I sunk his ship!"

"Number 99. Wow that's Einsteinium!"

This activity incorporated a fun game while still learning the elements!

Clouds!

When the clouds are out and the sun is shining it is nice to go on an adventure to draw what we have been learning about!

Our class took a five minute walk to discover the cloud formations and draw them using chalk!

What type of clouds do you see?

What type of clouds did you draw?

She was using her finger to smear the chalk to make her clouds.

These are images from the sky, as students were drawing their cloud pictures!

Our class discovered that most of the clouds in the sky were cirrus clouds and some were cirrocumulus or cirrostratus clouds.

Weather Phenomena Projects

This year our overarching theme is Transitions and under that lens we are learning about weather. Students asked questions on how storms and different weather patterns form, so their first project was to select a weather phenomena and answer questions like: 

How does it form?

What causes it?

Where does it happen?

Can we prevent that weather phenomena?

Are their any safety precautions people can take?

When was the biggest one?

When did one do the most damage?

Are their interesting facts about that weather phenomena?

We enjoyed sharing our projects with our friends from the Transitioners class.

Ladybug Mentors

The Thunderbolts enjoyed our first time with our PreK and Kindergarten mentors. They had a fabulous time measuring apple peels, discovering all the parts of the apple and getting to know their "little" friends!

Check out the PreK blog for more pictures: https://seaburyprek.blogspot.com/ 

Using a measuring tape to measure an apple peel.

"Hmm...I wonder how long the apple peel is?"

"Ours is longer than the measuring tape!"

"I think it is..."

Using precise measurement skills. 

"We need to get our measuring tape straight!"

We lined up all of our apple peels!

After measuring the apple peels Mrs. West did a debrief of what went well and what was the hardest part of measuring apple peels.