The Itsy Bitsy Spider in Spanish

The children are very excited about Halloween approaching, so this week in Spanish class they learned some words associated with Halloween. They learned how to say "pumpkin" and played a pumpkin matching game. They also made paper plate webs with dangling plastic spiders and learned to sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider".

Walking to Washington

In an attempt to get a little more exercise (teachers included), we have started taking walks around the edge of the campus every Tuesday and Thursday.



One of the high school teachers measured the distance for us and it is 1/3 of a mile.



Since it is more fun when we have a goal to work towards, we decided to pretend we are walking to Washington, D.C. (it seemed appropriate since we are studying American history this year). It is 783 miles from Gainesville, FL. to Washington, D.C., so we will have to walk around the property 2,349 times.

These walks also give the children a chance to play on the exercise equipment that they don't usually get to use





and interact with nature. On today's walk they had a great time trying to catch falling leaves before they touched the ground.

Muscles

The elementary students reviewed what they had learned about bones, during their Friday science class.

Mixed up bones were hidden under this cloth and the children had to assemble complete skeletons from them.











Then they moved on to learning about muscles.



This demonstration of how the muscles in the arm work, was cleverly done with two long, skinny balloons for each child.



Several of the boys wanted to show me how big their arm muscles were.

Language Arts

The Language Arts program for the elementary students is divided into 4 stations. There are sight words, word families, phonics, and handwriting for the younger children, while the older students have reading comprehension, vocabulary, editing/grammar, and handwriting.

Working on a list of "sight words"





The children spend twenty minutes at each station.



This group is learning about words that end in "ish".



The small groups, based on reading ability, mean that each child gets the attention and help they need from the teacher.

Bones

For the past two weeks, the elementary students have continued to learn about bones in science.





Last week, they learned about hands and the different types of joints.



A demonstration of a ball and socket joint:




This week, they learned about the skull, continued reviewing bone names, did body tracings, and worked on telling right from left on someone face them.

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.