Now I know my ABC's

The students have been learning their alphabet in Spanish this week.



The teacher has been making this a fun process, by playing alphabet games and singing with the children.

Native American Homes and Cooking

We have continued our study of Native American culture this week.

The oldest group, the children studying the Hopi, finally made adobe house dioramas that were not too hard and look really good.





The group that is learning about the Iroquois, began working on their thematics logbooks,



while the youngest group cooked some Native American food.

Wednesday, they cooked ground buffalo.







They really enjoyed the taste and asked if we can do it again sometime.





The other groups were also able to sample buffalo burgers, and everyone was able to touch a piece of buffalo hide to experience what it feels like.



Thursday, the group studying the Sioux did another cooking project and shared their food with the whole class. This time, they made fry bread and blueberry sauce.











The bread was a huge success! Some of the children came back for multiple helpings.



The blueberry dipping sauce made the fry bread taste a lot like blueberry glazed donuts.






Fry Bread



3 Cups unbleached white flour

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1 Tablespoon powdered milk

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 Cup water

1 inch of vegetable oil in a skillet.

Mix the dry ingredients first, then add the water and stir. Make sure it is well mixed, but don't really kneed the dough. Break off pieces of dough to form balls slightly smaller than a tennis ball. On a well floured surface,roll out the dough to form a flat circle. Fry in hot oil until golden in color. Cool on paper towels to absorb extra oil.

If you do not eat all of your fry bread in one sitting, it can be stored in the refrigerator. Reheat at 350 degrees F. for 10-15 minutes.

Another Reason Fridays are Special

Fridays are fun days at Trilogy school. Instead of language arts and math first thing in the morning, like the rest of the school week, the elementary students have music class (they are learning patriotic and historic American songs this year), which is followed by science in the high school science lab.

One of the other things that makes Fridays special, is that it is pizza day. The rest of the week, the children bring cold lunches from home, but on Fridays we order pizza.



To accompany the pizza, there is also a choice of canned lemonade or non-caffeinated soda. This is the only time during the school week when sweetened drinks are allowed, and the children must earn these drinks. Monday-Thursday, immediately after "circle time", we have 4-minute math. The timed math drills are how the students earn their Friday sodas. Each child has a punch card in their 4-minute math folder. Just for doing the math, they get one hole punched. If their time has improved from the day before, they get 2 hole punches. 10 hole punches earns a soda or lemonade during lunch on Friday.

Happy First Day of Autumn!

Spanish Class

Monday through Thursday, the last class of the day for the Elementary students is Spanish. We have a wonderful new Spanish teacher this year, who has been making learning fun, by using songs, games, and coloring pages.

So far, the children have learned the names of some school supplies,



colors,



animal names,



numbers 1-12, and some food names. Each child has also been given a Spanish name.

Earlier this week, the teacher brought a zampona (a Peruvian Pan flute) to school. She showed the children where Peru was located on the World map and then taught them to play a game with passing the flute, that helped them learn each other's Spanish names.







Each of the children also had a turn trying to play the flute.

Friday Science

This week in Science class, the elementary students were given logbooks with worksheets and pages for lab results. They had fun decorating the covers of their logbooks with stickers and crayons.



They continued the unit about the human body, by learning about hands.



They did finger prints and whole hand prints.





At the end of class, they were able to check on the progress of the chicken bones that they put in containers of vinegar last week. The acid has been removing the calcium from the bones and they are now able to bend.

Our Morning Song

Native American Studies

This week, we began a unit about Native Americans. The children have been split into three groups, with each group learning about a different tribe.

The group learning about the Sioux, made a village scene with stickers, tipis, and wooden peg people (this is our youngest group).











The children who are learning about the Iroquois painted pasta this week and turned it into wampum belts.





The third group is studying the Hopi. They were given a paper model to cut out and put together, but it has so many little pieces, that it's really too hard for the children to do. Even their teacher looks thrilled with this project, doesn't she?



So, they decided to go make pueblos out of Lego instead.



O.K., maybe they got a little distracted from Pueblo building.



The entire class listen to these two books today: