Week of Sept. 19-23

• This week students learned about air.
• Air is held to the earth by gravity.  We call this blanket of air our atmosphere.  You cannot see it, but you can feel it when it moves as wind.  It is made of mostly nitrogen with a lesser amount of oxygen.  The remaining 1% is a mixture of gasses including carbon dioxide.  Our atmosphere protects us from harmful rays of the sun, traps heat, and forms clouds to bring rain.  It keeps earth at the right temperature for plants to thrive and produce oxygen that we need.  
• The children demonstrated the exchange of gases between plants and animals in a lesson called the "Air Cycle Ballet." 
• They explored the different layers of the atmosphere (troposphere, stratosphere, ozone layer, mesosphere, and finally the thermosphere) and the characteristics of each layer.   
• In art class the children made collages of the atmosphere, lithosphere, and hydrosphere.
• We finished planting our garden.  We are growing butter lettuce, kale, chard, broccoli and cabbage.  This led to a discussion of seasonal produce and the availability of a wide variety of produce at our grocery stores.  It would be interesting to explore the produce aisle and discover how many different types of lettuces are available.