Upper Elementary News - Week of April 9

Measuring Christy’s Baby by Josephine (with help from Jonell)

We are all excited that Christy is having a baby girl and we can’t wait to meet her! Back in February, I was wondering if Christy knew the size of her baby. She said no, but suggested that I start taking measurements each week. We started taking measurements on Feb. 27th, and we stopped on Monday, April 9th. We found out that the baby grew one inch each week until March 27th. That week she dropped an inch. I think it was because the baby dropped into Christy’s pelvis. The following week, the baby grew 1.5 inches. Also, Laura heard from her midwife that giving birth is affected by changes in the weather, according to her experiences. Laura printed out a 10-day forecast to help us predict when Christy is going to have her baby. Her due date is April 13. I think Christy will have her baby on Friday night, April 13th because the temperature will be really low on Thursday night, and then it will get a lot warmer on Friday. We'll see if the prediction was right!*

*Update! At 3:07 AM on Friday, April 13, Lucy Beth Berryessa was born!

Visiting the Farm and Incubating Chicks

Next week after testing, we'll take small groups to the farm so that the students who don't normally visit the farm can see all the changes that have taken place, and students who go to the farm each week can showcase all the work that they have done. We now have a slide, our spring garden is growing, the hens have started to lay eggs, and the berry bushes we planted are starting to show signs of life. We’ll have lunch at the farm, go on student-led tours, and spend some time just enjoying all that the farm has to offer!

We will start incubating chicken eggs in the classroom next week. It will take 21 days for the chicks to hatch. We will candle the eggs on day 10 and again on day 18 to see how the embryos are developing. We’ll try to hatch some of the eggs from our hens, as well as a few from the Cloniger farm. We’ll study their development along the way using a growth chart. Once the chicks hatch, we’ll care for them at school for a little while before returning them to the farm.

Writing Wednesdays

Each Wednesday, we spend some time in the mornings writing about various topics. This week, our writing was inspired by a quote from the famous football coach Vince Lombardi. “It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.”

Kiki wanted to share what she wrote this week.

"I didn’t really like math at my old school. In fact, I hated it. Math made me feel frustrated, confused, and upset. I kept giving up and telling myself I couldn’t do it.

Then I moved to Abintra, and I started understanding it more. Math doesn’t make me feel stupid anymore. I’m still catching up, but I feel so much more confident now."