Ants Work Together, and So Do We!

I found these example of kids working together at recess the other day.  It made me happy to see my class helping each other!  We have been studying our ants, and watching how they work together...

We also watched a video of some leaf cutter ants that found a way to get across a broken branch they were crawling on.  They made a bridge!  So we made a bridge also!  Then we did some writing in our journals about how our ants work together.

We have been getting into the routine of our new math curriculum, My Math.  We also have time each day to do math centers... exploring hands on applications of math concepts.  Here the kids are in their math groups playing dominoes, making pattern necklaces, and working on their daily math lesson.

In science this week we asked the question, "What happens to all of the leaves that fall on the ground?  Why isn't forest piled up with old leaves?"  After making some hypotheses, we watched a time lapse video of what happens to leaves on the forest floor, and learned that they get decomposed by mushrooms and other fungi!  So... we went outside to see if we could see that happening.  We found some mushrooms growing, turned them over, and sure enough, they were "eating" leaves!  We could see their white thread-like roots growing into the leaves.  It was awesome!  We took some back to the classroom and took a closer look in the microscopes!

Then we wondered... does food decompose, or rot, the same way?  We decided to let some food decompose in our classroom, but we did some experiments to see what would affect how fast the fungi would grow on the food.  We added salt to one plate, water to another, left one out on the counter,  and put one in the fridge.  We will watch closely to see what happens, and what effects salt, moisture, and temperature have on the rate at which food decomposes!

This week we had a district cross country meet in Dot Lake.  Each class got to take their top three runners, so we had lots of fun in P.E. practicing and having races.  It was VERY competitive and exciting.

Melody, Natasha, and Braiden got to go to Dot Lake to race.  They all ran half a mile and did great!!!  You can only see Braiden's back leg in this picture, because he was so fast.  He was already almost gone by the time I took it!  We will have another race on Tuesday, Oct. 3rd in Tanacross, and this time we are going to take our whole class.  Hopefully you found a permission slip in your child's folder for this event.

We had the opportunity this week to watch some Fairy Tale plays that the Middle School and High School drama class put on for us.  It was SO much fun, and they did a great job!  Thank you to Ms. Walton and her drama students!