The Bergblog: Snapshot Summary, August 3-10, Summer School, week 2, At The Covered Bridge Edition

Snapshot Summary, August 3-10, Summer School, week 2, At The Covered Bridge Edition

Snapshot Summary, August 3-10

On Saturday, we went down to the Covered Bridge a mile from our house.

to sail cucumber boats. We had a grand time and enjoyed a dinner at the Mellow Mushroom afterwards because they have gluten-free and vegan cheese pizzas.

We had some rain on Sunday night, (there was flooding nearby) and it was amazing when we went back to the Covered Bridge on Monday how much more water there was in the Doe River.

Remember all the rocks you could see in the pictures on Saturday?

They were covered by water on Monday.

We played with water beads this week.

To begin our study of mollusks, I brought out all of my shells, and we began sorting them. There was some discussion while we were doing this, as to what constituted a new category.

We decided to make our categories as broad as we could, thinking that we could make more specific identification as we studied each category. I would love to have a wooden dividing box like Tea for Monkeys used, but due to limited space, we decided to divide them up on the table and put them in plastic bags.

After we had made our divisions, we looked through field guides to identify them, and wrote their names on the outside of the bags.

We began our study with clams. We had two basic kinds of clam shells. The Amethyst Gem Clam/ Dosinias and the Lucina. We read about clams in general and these type shells in particular from books...

Alex's (age 18, Special Education) notebook page
It can use its foot to dig down into the sand or mud to hide.
Each clam ring represents a new layer of shell that was added each year as the clam grew.

and then the boys sketched and wrote about them in their notebooks.

We learned that clam shells grow a new ring each year, just as trees do, and so James counted several shells to see how old they were.