Playing With Light and Color...and Addie's Recital!

Today the scholars learned the differences between color and light and where visible light is on the entire electromagnetic spectrum. They broke up white light into the ROYGBIV spectrum and drew it on their paper. They used prisms out in the sun to break up the light. Then we used light sticks to take individual green, blue, and red and put them together to form white light fluid. The scholars were able to write with the fluid and draw with it.

writing with white light

Tommy is glowing

the only time you can write on the wall...and get away with it!

Hailey making light pictures

putting together a glow ball

Mixing colors of light

Add caption

Grant spinning light sticks

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Then in the afternoon I had the pleasure of watching Addie's Recital. Here is a photo of her singing her solo....

Great job Addie! :)

Mono = One; Poly = Many

Many, Many monomers total up to make a polymer....and that's what we studied today as we learned the differences between simple reactions, and reactions that produce a product known as a polymer. We then went on a treasure hunt to find polymer products throughout the school and came up with everything from our plastic bins in the classroom to the clothes that we were wearing! We created our own polymers out of glue and borax, and then played with polymer balls.

simple reaction

baking soda and vinegar...always exciting!

post reaction

making polymers!

playing with polymers

eeewwww Tommy! ;)

drips through our fingers

fun stuff (dual banned words in sixth grade!)

make it bounce!

Echinoderms!

Today's augmentation class dissected sea stars, or as we may call them, star fish...but they are not really fish! We learned about how they can regrow appendages (arms) and how they take in food with their two stomachs and digest. They have no brain, no heart, but they're still very interesting carnivores!

Scholars had to find all the anatomical parts and label them after dissection. They included, the mouth, anus, stomach, ring canal, vascular system, tube feet, and digestive glands.

preparing for surgery....:)

measuring arms

great view of digestive glands

cutting through the skin

cracking and cutting

check this out!

removing a stomach

lifting the gonads

moving a tube foot

digestive glands

internal structures

stomach parts

from anus to mouth with tweezers!

Billboards and Storybooks!

Important NOTICE! July 12th, noon, we will meet at the Layton Surf and Swim for a swim party, noon to 2:00. A Goers tradition....and a way to have fun with present and past students! Stay connected and come join us!!!!

Monday scholars were busy on creating our billboards that would hopefully have an inspirational message based on one of our foundation stones. You can go and view some of the ones created by our class by simply going to
 http://www.values.com/inspirational-sayings-billboards

and then click on "view billboards others have made"

as of today most of ours appear on page four, but those will fall into later pages as more are created. You can identify us by our first names and where we live :).

This was an inspiring and creative activity that led to our creative writing projects that we started today. Students are writing an publishing children's books. We are hoping to have a significant number of them to add to the GFA library! When they are finished we will post their links so you can see them and purchase them online if you like! :))

De-oxy-ribo-nucleic-acid or DNA Day!

Today scholars learned about the code that defines every physical trait in each of our cells. We learned about Adenine, Cytosine, Thymine, and Guanine, and how they pair up on the double helix to make our DNA code. We then extracted some DNA from blueberries, spinach (purple and green of course) and then strawberries. Scholars were challenged with an online game that demanded that they mix the proper cell parts in order to create a particular animal....it was rather entertaining actually! :)

matching game, mnemonic = apple tree; chewing gum

match as fast as you can!

grinding spinach and blueberries

filtering extra unnecessary parts

filtering

watching the strands of DNA connecting

adding phosphate

adding alcohol

stirring gently

strands becoming clear and evident so we can make slides

creating a "creature"

Come on Addie! You can do it!!!

Khylee got it!

strawberry DNA