This week, I went to my swimming, taekwondo, and violin classes, and attending orchestra on Saturday. I started a taekwondo essay, because that’s one of the things you have to do to test for black belt, and I did coding in Scratch.
This is from Ethan’s nature school teacher, Mink:
The Great Blue Herons started our day off at Spiny Wood doing BIRD SKITS! The instructors had a blast acting out the 5 voices of the birds (song, companion call, juvenile begging, territorial aggression and alarm) and letting the kids try to decipher what was going on! Some of the kids who have been around longer and seen bird skits many times helped us with the acting, to great effect!
After all of the silliness was done, we invited each group to make up their own bird skit with two or more of the bird voices worked into it! The Herons had a fairly complicated idea, and to work through various phases of inspiration, distraction and frustration, but eventually ended being able to work together to present an awesome skit.
Afterwards, we headed to Toadstool Ridge where Mink presented “The Great Coal-Carrying Challenge!” The challenge was to create tinder bundles, and using a flint and steel to light them, carry the ember all the way back to Spiny Wood without it going out. Carrying a lit bundle is a delicate endeavor, so we made sure to talk about how to keep it from bursting into flame unexpectedly, and how to safely respond if that happened. The kids tried various creative means of protecting their bundles, some even insulating that outside with wetter material. In the end, the biggest bundle was the one to make it the whole way. But it might have been how the coal was tended (rather than the size of the bundle) that mattered the most in the end. This would be a fun one to try again!
The reward for a bundle making it all the way back to Spiny Wood was to practice our scout movement by setting up and playing Forest Ninja Ghost Pinata for the rest of the day! We did this with great enthusiasm and even had time to create an extra shared weapon, which can be used by other groups when they come to play with us. Gradually, our balance and focus is improving, and it’s becoming more and more difficult to throw each other from the logs!
| LC Short Response |
Hello Ethan,
This will be a bit of a shorter response as I did some professional development of my own this week. I am taking an online class on trauma-informed teaching practices. Basically it helps me work with children in better ways who have gone through some sort of trauma and it is impacting their behavior, social skills or learning. It can be very hard to have children who are or have experienced some sort of trauma in the classroom and I want to be as effective and helpful as possible. I will let you discuss with your parents if you are more curious about this.
I see that you have two essays on the go, the Taekwondo one and the Solar System. When do you hope to test for your black belt? I am very proud and impressed, you have shown wonderful dedication to your martial arts practice over the years. What do you like best about Taekwondo? How does it make you feel? Would you recommend it to others and why?
The scratch typewriter effect docking is really cool, will you be using it in your future videos? I think it is a really neat effect, although most of your audience (being younger) may not even know what a typewriter is. I never even used one and I am 45.
Isn’t the evolution of life on the planet incredible? Interested in exploring more about life, cells, biomes…check out the library, some really neat resources compiled here: https://selfdesign.learning.powerschool.com/selfdesignlearning/library/cms_page/view/28783662
Not to mention this very creative little animated film:
In 1674, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek looked at a drop of lake water through his homemade microscope and discovered an invisible world that no one knew existed. His work inspired countless microbiology researchers, including HHMI investigator Bonnie Bassler, one of the narrators of this animated feature. Leeuwenhoek was a haberdasher and city official in Delf, The Netherlands.He started making simple microscopes and using them to observe the world around him. He was the first to discover bacteria, protists, sperm cells, blood cells, rotifers, and much more.
<iframe width=”722″ height=”406″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/ePnbkNVdPio” title=”YouTube video player” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen></iframe>
How is the piano going? Have you been playing it much?
How did you like being part of the bird skits? Do you like acting and group projects like this?
Or did you prefer the tinder bundle challenge?
Have a great weekend,
All your projects on the go sound awesome, looking forward to next week’s Observing for Learning to hear more.
Natasha
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