The beautiful fall weather continued through October. What a blessing it was to be able to see and watch the colors change.  Kids spent a lot of time exploring the colors outside and enjoying the great weather. Check out some of the great activities we enjoyed this month. 

APPLES!! Our third graders were able to visit the Fettig’s orchard to pick apples this month.  The 3 classes combined to fill a whopping 42 milk crates with apples!  Good thing we brought the truck.  We hauled those apples back to school for a favorite activity at ACS, making cider with the press. All the grades got in on at least some of the action from cleaning, hauling, cutting, smashing, pressing, pasteurizing, and most importantly drinking the finished product.  So much fun to enjoy this process and delicious product with everyone. 

Our preschool students took an opportunity to enjoy a special farm day.  This included an egg hunt, planting some beans and a visit to the barn to learn about the goat milking process with Ms Leah.

They also took special time to enjoy the colors and collect leaves on a special hike.  They took the leaves they collected and organized them by color.

In Kindergarten we investigated weather by looking at how wind is measured.  Students had a blast measuring the wind outside with their very own pinwheels. Later in the month we made use of some of the pumpkins grown right here at ACS to do pumpkin math. Students had fun weighing, measuring, counting seeds and carving the pumpkins.

In addition to getting in on the cider making fun, our first grade also took some time to think about animals and adaptations. We took a trip to the barn to observe the goats and chickens and think about what adaptations they have to help them eat  Students watched them eat in order to discover this. 

Second grade explored what it might be like to be a pioneer on the Oregon trail by learning and practicing some tracking skills.  We finished by making some imprints in the sand and making casts of the prints using plaster of paris.

Third grade did an amazing job collecting our apples for making cider.  It was a nice fit since they had been learning about seed dispersal as well.  We looked around school for all sorts of ways seeds are dispersed.  One day we tried some origami to see if we could imitate the ways seeds are dispersed like a helicopter or by floating. We’ve also been watching our seeds grow from sprouts to plants in the greenhouse!

Fourth grade has been able to enjoy some time outside putting their science knowledge to work using a couple of simulations.  These activities helped them explore how animals move to new areas to find food when they run out and how animals use sound to avoid predators and find others in their own species. We’ve also been thinking about decomposition and how litter critters create the soil used to grow our delicious vegetables! 

We have been tying our survival theme into science by learning about navigation using the sun and stars as well as a couple other methods that could be used on cloudy day. We’ve also been enjoying goat duty, goat hikes, and learning about our resident herd, including Rumble the billy goat who arrived this past weekend.

Our sixth graders collected leaves of various colors and extracted the pigments to run a chromatography lab.  This helped us deduce which colors are in the leaves all year and which are new pigments created in the fall. We’ve also been working diligently to care for our 50 chickens, who are almost all laying an egg per day. Phew! That’s a lot of eggs to collect, clean, package and sell!

We wrapped up our fall investigation of the pond, and will use these skills later in the spring to investigate different streams in the area in the spring to see what would work well for the salmon being raised in science. The wigwam in the Indian Village is also coming together, thanks to their help.

In eighth grade we took another opportunity early in the month on a beautiful day to practice getting away from the distractions and take time to listen to God. The colors were incredible and the students were silent for a few minutes at a time! An impressive feat. 8th grade was able to get in on the cider fun as well helping create the cider and help in the pasteurization. For science 8th grade came outside to make a mess while working on their crater lab. They dropped objects in flour to investigate how mass, speed and size affect the resulting crater.