We had a great farm field trip day on Monday this week. It was an opportunity for both Ms. Kassie and I to connect some of our learning in the classroom to the real world. Students got to learn and eat fresh veggies at Seed to Table farm. As always their team does an amazing job with the kids. We then got a chance to stop by The Stand and talk to local farmer Benji about how he get fresh food to folks through a very unique farm stand that relies on “the honor system” which we discussed as a group. We finished the day at Lazy Z Ranch where we learned about soil and bees as well as participating in a stewardship project. There were even goats and dogs to pet. To me, this was the BBS model in action. Place-based, hand-on learning that connects our classrooms to our community. Thanks all for making it a success. 

We put that knowledge into action today by planting two flats of micro greens in class. We plan to harvest them the last week of school and enjoy the process of growing our own food. Big thanks to Kenzie and the PTO for supporting this project. 

We had a great farm field trip day on Monday this week. It was an opportunity for both Ms. Kassie and I to connect some of our learning in the classroom to the real world. Students got to learn and eat fresh veggies at Seed to Table farm. As always their team does an amazing job with the kids. We then got a chance to stop by The Stand and talk to local farmer Benji about how he get fresh food to folks through a very unique farm stand that relies on “the honor system” which we discussed as a group. We finished the day at Lazy Z Ranch where we learned about soil and bees as well as participating in a stewardship project. There were even goats and dogs to pet. To me, this was the BBS model in action. Place-based, hand-on learning that connects our classrooms to our community. Thanks all for making it a success. 

We put that knowledge into action today by planting two flats of micro greens in class. We plan to harvest them the last week of school and enjoy the process of growing our own food. Big thanks to Kenzie and the PTO for supporting this project. 

In P.E. class we wrapped up our lacrosse unit and are now learning how to throw and catch frisbees and play disc golf. 

We are also planning to take each classroom over to the youth fishing pond near school for an afternoon of fly fishing. Each class will spend an entire afternoon at the pond learning the basics of fly fishing and trying to land a big one for themselves. We have some fly rods being loaned to us by Kathy at the Camp Sherman store and Luke at the Fish Hatchery. Students are welcome to bring their own rods and flies on the day they fish as well. The dates are:

May 28- Rose Hips fishing

June 2- Blue Bay fishing

June 4- Green Ridge fishing

I could use some extra volunteer helpers those days if you are interested. Please reach out to me (Delaney) if you are available any of those days as a volunteer. Also, let me know if you have any questions about this unique class.

Last week, Blue Bay students started their day off with state testing. Because of this, we’ve been squeezing math and humanities into one class period.

In Humanities students have been studying the ancient Mayans as we move our focus to the early Mesoamerican civilizations. They have also continued with their world geography unit by taking their test on the major rivers of the planet. This week, Blue Bay students also wrote their third letter to their pen pals at Koche Primary School in Malawi, Africa. We have been impressed with the English Language Arts and handwriting skills of the Malawian students, and the kids are really enjoying this experience. In Math, 4th and 5th graders are working with fractions, and 6th and 7th graders are working with expressions and equations and solving for a variable. Our 8th grader is working with functions. 

Today students received a sticky note that has the titles of the library books they have checked out from the school library. Hopefully their sticky note is in their homework folder. It would be lovely if you could help your child track down these books and get them returned to BBS. One of these books is their independent reading book, in which they have an assigned page number to read to each day at home, so they should hang onto that one of course. Additionally, there is vocabulary list #20 to study for the spelling test on Friday, as well as the major mountain ranges of the world. Below is a link to help them practice their mountain ranges. 

https://www.geoguessr.com/vgp/3131

Finally, the Central Oregon Innovators Club had its second meeting yesterday after school. 6th-8th grade students completed one of the Lego Education lessons by building a robotic airplane and programming it so that its flight path was able to navigate around obstacles and “rescue researchers that had been stranded in the forest”. Before they add AI sensors into their robotics, students participated in a discussion centered around the pros and cons of integrating artificial intelligence with robotics, and the dangers of AI in general. I think it is important for students to gain an understanding of the complex nature of this field and grapple with the gravity of living in the ‘age of technology’. The club has begun brainstorming ideas of what kind of robot they might build for their final project and what kind of service their robot will provide for the local community.

We have been doing some growth assessments on the computers this week and last week. All students finished their literacy and showed wonderful progress. I am not surprised as this crew has been rocking their reading. For students to recognize their own growth is hard. Talking about ways you have noticed their growth at home might be a nice connection to what we are doing in class. 

We had a wonderful food systems/farm field trip on Monday. We have been working on connecting what we learned with a focus on bees/pollinators, water, and soil. Ask your students what they learned about these topics in class and on the field trip.

Green Ridge Literacy & Math: Green Ridgers are typing their essay, practicing /oi/ and /oo/ phonemes and starting to multiply with 7, 8 and 9.