Tidepool in the Classroom

Upcoming Events:

December 12: Field trip to Duxbury Reef (permission form coming home today)

December 19, 8:30-10:00 am:  Ocean and Kelp Forest classroom event.  Family members invited to the "opening" of our Kelp Forest installation.  Both Cerrito and Strawberry will be open for visiting the ocean related displays.

Thank you all for the healthy donations of newspaper.  We are now well stocked and will not need more for quite a while.

Today in Strawberry:  The classroom filled with tide pool animals this morning as Jeff Sandler (middle school science teacher) brought specimens to the classroom to share about what we will experience at Duxbury Reef next week.  From crabs to chitons the students identified adaptations that help the organisms survive in the difficult environment of the tidal zone.

Our kelp forest creatures continued to develop this afternoon.  We may run out of space for humans soon.

 Jeff Sandler's presentation about tide pool animals.

 Discussing adaptations.

 Leopard sharks, sheephead, kelp fish and more!

 Ironically, our jellies will be made from the same stuff

sea turtles mistake for tasty jellies (plastics).

 Red octopus and garibaldi fish coming slowly to life.

 Abalone and orange puffball sponges in progress.

 California sea lion ready for its layer of skin!

The voracious sunflower star.

Step Up Day

Homework
5th Grade Math:  Packet
4th Grade Math:  Packet (due Friday) - Students work at their own pace.

Upcoming Events:

December 12: Field trip to Duxbury Reef (permission form coming home today)

December 19, 8:30-10:00 am:  Ocean and Kelp Forest classroom event.  Family members invited to the "opening" of our Kelp Forest installation.  Both Cerrito and Strawberry will be open for visiting the ocean related displays.

Thank you all for the healthy donations of newspaper.  We are now well stocked and will not need more for quite a while.

Today in Strawberry:  Step Up day was a huge success for both the 4th graders in Strawberry with Temescal students and the 5th graders who went to Wildcat.  In Strawberry our math activities included a probability dice activity:  the students rolled 6-sided dice about 25 times to determine likelihood of rolling certain sums.  We used the information to complete a game board related to probability with dice.  For writing workshop we read Where the Wild Things Are followed by creating our own version of the story.  Back together in the classroom the Strawberry students continued to move forward on completing Fort Ross re-writing and science research writing projects we have been working on all week.

Step Up dice probability activity

 Designing the game board

 Playing our games.

 Fort Ross journal re-writing.

The kelp forest animals are getting really big!

Book Club Projects

Homework
5th Grade Math:  Packet
4th Grade Math:  Packet (due Friday) - Students work at their own pace.

We are going through copier changes at TBS and I am not able to scan the homework at this time to attach it to the blog.

Upcoming Events:

December 12: Field trip to Duxbury Reef (permission form coming home today)

December 19, 8:30-10:00 am:  Ocean and Kelp Forest classroom event.  Family members invited to the "opening" of our Kelp Forest installation.  Both Cerrito and Strawberry will be open for visiting the ocean related displays.

Book Club projects:  Groups are finishing their projects, and two presented today.

 Hatchet - makers of the Hatchet board game

Esperanza Rising - explaining their character trait flower diagram

Homework
5th Grade Math:  Packet
4th Grade Math:  Packet (due Friday) - Students work at their own pace.  We will check progress on Wednesday (students should aim for half of the packet being done by Wednesday).

We are going through copier changes at TBS and I am not able to scan the homework at this time to attach it to the blog.

Upcoming Events:

December 12: Field trip to Duxbury Reef (form coming home soon)

December 19, 8:30-10:00 am:  Ocean and Kelp Forest classroom event.  Family members invited to the "opening" of our Kelp Forest installation.  Both Cerrito and Strawberry will be open for visiting the ocean related displays.

Newspaper still needed.  We are using a LOT of newspaper for our kelp forest installation project.  Please feel free to continue sending it in.  Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far.

Today in Strawberry:  During writing workshop today the students wrote paragraphs about the kelp forest organism they have researched.  The writing will accompany related information all about their organism.  We are also wrapping up the book club projects.  Some groups are finished and are ready to share to the class.  

Welcome Back!

Homework
5th Grade Math:  Packet
4th Grade Math:  Packet (due Friday) - Students work at their own pace.  We will check progress on Wednesday (students should aim for half of the packet being done by Wednesday).

We are going through copier changes at TBS and I am not able to scan the homework at this time to attach it to the blog.

Newspaper still needed.  We are using a LOT of newspaper for our kelp forest installation project.  Please feel free to continue sending it in.  Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far.

Upcoming Events:

December 12: Field trip to Duxbury Reef (form coming home soon)

December 19, 8:30-10:00 am:  Ocean and Kelp Forest classroom event.  Family members invited to the "opening" of our Kelp Forest installation.  Both Cerrito and Strawberry will be open for visiting the ocean related displays.

Today in Strawberry:  We began building animals for our kelp forest installation.  Paper mache' and clay!

 Demonstrating a math formula

 Modeling clay to make a kelp crab

 Paper stuffing to make the bodies of fish, sea lions . . .

 Finishing research

Paper mache'