Fall field trips

For our first all school trip of the year, we learned about train travel and had the chance to ride on an Amtrak train to Salem. We had an entire car just for our school on the trip south. In Salem, we walked to the park for a picnic and time on the playground. It was amazing to see the historic train stations in both Portland and Salem. On our way back to Portland we did not have a car to ourselves, but we got to ride upstairs in a tall sleeper car with reclining seats. What fun! Parents always attend our field trips, so this was a great chance for our families to get to know each other better. We love our Double Creek families!

We also had a great time visiting Newell Pioneer Village. We had a chance to try out doing laundry the old fashioned way, dipping candles, and having class in a one room school house. We tried writing with quill pens, explored a cool museum of local artifacts, and even hand spun wool. What an awesome place to visit!

After Newell House, some families stopped by Champoeg State Park for a picnic and a visit to their museum. It is fine to play pioneer dress up with friends. 

Our Halloween field trip took us to visit Frog Pond Farms. We came to visit the animals and pick out pumpkins, but the highlight of the visit was when a llama happened to give birth while we were in the field. The children were fascinated to watch the delivery and all of the "auntie" llamas greeting the new baby as it learned to get up on its own. The kids also really enjoyed the bounce houses.

Stopping by to see a very friendly cow 

Mama Llama and her hour old baby

Science Experiments

 

        At Double Creek, we love science! Our younger group was studying volcanos and finished the unit by making their own paper mache volcano. The whole school came to watch the "explosion." The younger group does a lot of Magic School Bus inspired science. Sherilyn even has dresses to go with her units. Unfortunately, we have not been able to find a magic bus.   

        Here the kids are preparing to build their volcano. Getting messy and exploring our world is all part of building scientific understanding. 

            How can our tiny moon cover up the enormous sun? We explained solar eclipses by letting each student experience their own eclipse as the tiny ball held by Joy blocks their view of the giant ball. Whenever possible, we like to teach science with hands on experiments. 

 

Guest author T., 4th grade, writes about his experiences in the older science group using the Beast Academy curriculum and doing additional student designed experiments.  

        Beast Academy is a fun and enriching program. Beast Academy is a world of fun little monsters teaching us about math and science. The most fun for the kids is the guide, which is a comic book about little monsters learning how to do math and science. Originally it was only math books but now they have science books and here's a little about what the kids are doing in Beast science.

        The first big project was for each kid to make a pendulum and see how long the string needed to be so each swing of the pendulum was exactly one second. For other experiments the pendulum had to be able to vary its weight and string length. Each kid made their own pendulum entirely on their own. First, they all drew a plan for what they were going to build and they started to build it they added changes as they needed. 

 

Here are the students' pendulums (some are not complete in the pictures, though). 

        Later, in our own unit, we learned about making a science fair experiment. We did it on growing lettuce to see if a greenhouse worked better than normal. We got to design and build a green house over one of the garden beds. The other group wanted to see if peat pellets work better than garden soil. If you don't know what a peat pellet is, it's a small piece of dirt that is very compact and if you add water to it it'll puff up and it has a small sack around it that will slowly decompose. 

                           

This table shows the number of plants we counted each day.

	Greenhouse sprouts	Control sprouts
4/15/24	15	5
4/17/24	16	19
4/22/24	11	24
4/23/24	12	30
5/1/24	4	37
5/6/24	3	26
5/13/24	2	28

Conclusion:

In our experiment the lettuce grew better when planted straight in the ground than in a greenhouse. This data is not consistent with our hypothesis. The greenhouse retained humidity, kept the lettuce safe from harsh rain and hail, and led to faster initial germination. However, by the end of the experiment all of the plants had disappeared. We suspect maybe from animals, like slugs. 

Free time

Guest author M., 4th grade, shares some of the ways our students spend their free time at school.

Every day we get to have a half hour to play after we eat snack. We can play with cards, play board games, read a book, play make-believe, or draw! Some of our favorite card games are War, Speed, Solitaire, Garbage, and Spit. Some favorite board games are Enchanted Cupcake Party and Sofia the First Royal Prep Academy. 

At lunch recess, we either go outside or stay inside. When we stay inside it is also like snack, playing games, reading books, playing make-believe and drawing. We also play with mats and blocks.

        When we go outside, we also play make-believe as well as pulling ivy, climbing hills, finding treasures (stuff like snake sheds and antique containers), and just running around! The younger class has indoor recess in the playroom. They also play with blocks and mats. We make lots of fun creations when we play at snack and lunch recess.

 

Our Exciting Halloween

 

4th grader, S., shares about our fun Halloween party  

        Halloween is very fun and exciting at Double Creek. On Halloween this year, a student’s dad set up a scavenger hunt for the students. The students searched for numbered envelopes, each labeled with a student’s name. Each envelope contained a clue leading to the next envelope. Students had to use a book of codes, seat monsters for dinner, and even put together a jigsaw puzzle to understanding the clues. The students were eventually guided to a treasure chest with a code to crack the padlock.

        There was a happy and pleasant atmosphere about everything. The story of the scavenger hunt was about an octopus-squid-man mutant when he found triple creek. He hid a chest in triple creek and left hints for the “clueless” children. What he didn’t know was that the children of Double Creek are actually excellent detectives. The students had a great time solving the mystery.

    Afterward, the students had a dress-up party with music, singing and dancing.

“The way everybody got a chance to do it on their own was exciting,” M, 4th grader, happily exclaimed.

 “The exciting atmosphere almost knocked us over,” S, 4th grader, said.

“It was extremely fun, with an exciting reward at the end,” E, 4th grader, excitedly remarked.

“I liked the scavenger hunt because there were so many clues,” C, 1st grader, happily stated. 

The teacher, Sherilyn, was a terrifying emerald ash borer. Fun facts about these insects: They lay their eggs in Oregon Ashes, thus giving their larvae a food resource; the larvae eat the inner bark of the tree. This might not sound bad, but it cuts the water flow in the tree. This kills the tree.