Hi everybody!

We have done so many great things this week!

We are still working on writing our Ashes of Roses scripts. We are making excellent progress on the scenes we are working on. The class enjoying the opportunity to revisit parts of the book, determine the most important parts, and figure out how to make it work in a script format. We can’t wait to finish so we can start rehearsing!

This week we took a deeper dive into the subject of climate change. We did a gallery walk where the students got to see the effects of pollution. They saw how it affects the air we breath, the animals in the ocean, and the Earth as a whole. During the gallery walk, the class watched a short video showing what the world would look like if all the ice melted. The students were shocked to see how much land would end up underwater. We talked about what a climate refugee is and saw how people in Louisiana and the Island nation of Kiribati are already seeing their homes start to disappear. To find out what is making the sea level go up, we did an experiment. We wanted to see if it was ice in the ocean that was causing the sea level to rise or if it was ice on land. We had two small tubs of water. One had little “islands,” while the other did not. In the tub without islands, we put ice directly in the water. In the tub with the islands, we put ice on the islands. We then measured the level of the water in both containers. After hours of waiting for the ice to melt, we noticed that the water level of the tub with the islands went up, while the water level in the other tub stayed the same. This showed us that ice on land melting into the ocean is what’s causing the sea level to rise. We discussed different things that we can do in our own lives to help prevent climate change.

For Mindset Math this week, we continued exploring shapes and the way they fit together. This week we focused on triangles. We learned about polyiamonds, which are unique shapes made from tiling equilateral triangles. We explored to see how many different ways we could put two triangles together, then three, then four, and so on. We discovered that the more triangles we had, the more ways there were for us to put them together.

On Tuesday, we went to see the opera Earth to Kenzie. The show was about a girl coping with homelessness. This was an amazing opportunity for us to get introduced to opera in a way that is accessible to kids, as well as show us how homelessness affects people.

Looking ahead: Next week we will do our regular bank visit on Friday. Monday during our library time we will have a presentation on homelessness and how we can help. Wednesday, November 20th we will have an early dismissal.

Have an amazing weekend!