The Corps of Discovery Made It!!!

What an excellent day.  While it rained in the morning we helped put together a skeleton of a young gray whale.  The whale bones came as a school event, and we were so thrilled to be able to participate before our departure.

Please see the photos of our field trip just after the whale skeleton.  It was a great day in Tilden Park.  The students were placed in two Corps of Discovery groups and led their own hike based on a map that had "somehow" been damaged and was missing information.  Using a compass, scouting parties, and discussion each group made it to the top of Wild Cat Peak. 

 

Discovery Corps group 1 - Lewis and Clark explain the map and plan their route.

 Each group needed to communicate with Mark (representing a new American Indian tribe along the trail) using sign language and offering gifts to gain passage into the new area.

 Sacagawea #1 carrying Meeko on her back.

 Foreground, York carrying a heavy barrel of supplies up the slippery mountainside.

 Corps 1 on the top!

 Sacagawea #2 on the top with Meeko safe in his bundle.

 Group 2 raiding the contents of their barrel.

 Kissing a banana slug!  What a committed member of the team.

 The students used small journals to draw, record experiences and plan a shelter.

 Building shelters.

 The rain storm comes (cups of water).

 Headed home.

Thank you to our drivers and chaperones:  Mark, Joan, Gina and Don!

Field trip Tomorrow

Homework:
4th Grade Math: Right angle practice
5th Grade Math: Math packet

Wordly Wise: Please spend 15-20 minutes working on Wordly Wise this evening.

Biography Reading Homework:  Feb. 4 - 13, Please spend your 20 minutes of reading time each night on your biography book, using the sticky notes to mark important events (refer to the YELLOW sheet for what to mark).

FIELD TRIP TOMORROW!
Students & Adults should wear/bring:

• Shoes/Boots for hiking
• Rain Coat (50% chance of rain)
• Lunch & Snack
• An adventurous mood!

Cultural Studies & Maps: Today we had a chance to work on the topographic maps some more. Using the sand, students made their own mountains to map out with appropriate contour lines.   We're hoping that we can use our knowledge of maps and contour lines to map out our own hike tomorrow!

Buddies: With the impending rain, Strawberry and Laurel Creek took advantage of the nice weather and played at the park. Buddy pairs played tag, went on the slide, pushed one another on the swings, and helped each other cross the monkey bars!

Topographic Maps

Homework
4th Grade - Quadrilaterals page (Option 1 or Option 2)
5th Grade - Packet

Wordly Wise: Please spend 15-20 minutes working on Wordly Wise this evening.

Biography Reading Homework:  Feb. 4 - 13, Please spend your 20 minutes of reading time each night on your biography book, using the sticky notes to mark important events (refer to the YELLOW sheet for what to mark). Coming home with the students are pages to support their reading, linked here as the Biography Packet.  This packet contains duplicate versions of sheets being used in class that should be kept in the homework binder.  Please note the Biography Project Timeline sheet.  This lays out in stages the work in school and at home that will take place.

Reminder:  Field trip on Thursday, February 7 to Tilden Park.  Students will need to wear shoes to hike in, bring snack and lunch, and a water bottle!

From Sima: Today in Math Club students enjoyed puzzling over how to buy 100 candies with $15 if cotton candy costs $1, candy bars 50 cents, and gumballs 5 cents (clearly an old problem, given the costs!). There were also geometric puzzles carving out equal area, a word puzzle similar to Sudoku, a zigzag puzzle, and some Chinese New Year puzzles, since this Sunday is the start of the Yin Water Snake year.  Finally, some students learned a new game which would be easy to play at home--Fantastic Four.

Cultural Studies:  Today we watched a movie version of the Lewis & Clark expedition, and compared this version to our read aloud book in class written from the perspective of Scagawea.

Topographic Maps:  The students were introduced to topographic maps today (partly to prepare them for the field trip on Thursday).  We built sand mountains and drew contour lines to show how the sand mountains might appear on a map.  We discussed how to calculate elevation change on the map, use a compass to orient a map and how to approximate mileage.  The students began working in teams to follow a topographic map scavenger hunt.

Biographies Galore!

Homework
No math homework today for 4th or 5th grade.

Wordly Wise: Please spend 15-20 minutes working on Wordly Wise this evening.

Biography Reading Homework:  Feb. 4 - 13, Please spend your 20 minutes of reading time each night on your biography book, using the sticky notes to mark important events (refer to the YELLOW sheet for what to mark). Coming home with the students are pages to support their reading, linked here as the Biography Packet.  This packet contains duplicate versions of sheets being used in class that should be kept in the homework binder.  Please note the Biography Project Timeline sheet.  This lays out in stages the work in school and at home that will take place.

Reminder:  Field trip on Thursday, February 7 to Tilden Park.  Students will need to wear shoes to hike in, bring snack and lunch, and a water bottle!

Biographies: A large part of our day was spend on organizing the first steps of the biography study. Students received their blue biography folder which will be kept in class to hold all the important documents for the duration of the project. Three important papers were handed out today:
1) White reference sheet- this is a quick reference guide for important facts about the person (birthdate, family, education, etc).
2) Yellow sticky note sheet- this paper explains what students should be looking for when they are reading and where to place sticky notes in their book.
3) White bibliography organizer- this is an organizer for students to record the books, articles, movies, encyclopedias, etc. that they are using for their biographies.

Happy Friday!

Reminders:
We have two upcoming field trips.
Thursday, February 7th-- Tilden Park Hike/Lewis and Clark Simulation
Thursday, February 14th-- EBMUD Watershed Restoration
**Please return the field trip forms ASAP! 

Biography: Students are expected to have chosen their person and have a BIOGRAPHY by Monday, February 4th. We will begin collecting information about our famous Americans next week, so it is important that each student has a book that they can begin to read and find important information.
A timeline and project overview will be coming home next week so that students and parents have a better understanding of what is going to be expected for this unit of study.

Black History Month & Cerritoberry: For the next six weeks Strawberry students will be working together with Cerrito students to dive deeper into different aspects of the history and culture of African Americans in the United States. Students were introduced to four different interest groups this morning: blues, dance/movement, sports/athletes, and art/poetry. Throughout the coming weeks, groups will investigate the influential people of each category as well as the impact they have had on the United States as a whole.