Week of December 7th

This week the owls (k-1) learned more about bones. We talked about the structure of bones - spongy and compact, blood vessels. The kids also learned that blood cells are made inside big bones, and they learned about the different components of blood - red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and plasma. The kids had fun making models of bones and exploring the different components of blood.

While the eagles wait to hear back from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, they are learning about weather. We started our weather study by learning about the atmosphere. They learned about the different layers of the atmosphere, how pressure changes from layer to layer and also about the greenhouse effect.  After learning about the atmosphere, the kids made barometers and small posters summarizing what they learned.

Crows and owls had their last buddy time, before Winter break, yesterday. They made ornaments out of pipe cleaners and put them in a borax/hot water solution. The ornaments will sit in this solution overnight and crystals will form around their ornaments.

Progress and update

Yesterday, Saturday December 5ht, Lorie and I got a lot of help from families. We had an amazing group of parents and kids. Everyone worked hard - we added a lot of mulch to the native area, pulled weeds and striped mulched a few areas. In addition to families, Jared Borba, UCD undergraduate student interested in restoring habitats spent a few hours of his  Saturday morning helping us.

Here are some pictures illustrating the progress that we made yesterday:

In the after school class we finished projects (bird houses and bee houses), put a new solar pump in the pond and made posters to show people what we have been doing in this class.

Owls (k-1) and crows (5-6) are working on making models of their hands. They learned about bones, joints, tendons and muscles and are creating a model that illustrates how the bones and tendons work to move our fingers. I will post pictures of the models as soon as they are ready.
                                           

 The crows are studying cells and were asked to make models of their cells. The kids did an amazing job. They were very creative and definitely learned the main parts of the cell (nucleus, cytoplasm, cell membrane and some organelles). They also learned about DNA --> RNA --> protein.

Here are some pictures of the cell models:

 eukaryotic cell

plant cell

eukaryotic cell

neuron and glial cells

cardiac muscle cell

After submitting the first draft of the proposal to U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, the eagles (2-4) had a "mulch party". I brought some snacks for the kids and we stripped mulched a section of the native area.