We Have Eaglets! UPDATED!

The first egg in the Pittsburgh nest has hatched!! You can view them by clicking here!

Here's a screen shot from dinner time tonight (Tuesday) around 7:00 PM. The second egg should be hatching  sometime in the next 12 hours!

The second egg DID hatch around 9:40 last night. Here are some pictures from breakfast time this morning a little after 8:00!

The State Capitol

On Wednesday, the Bair's Den and the other classes on Team 4A travelled to Harrisburg to tour the state capitol building and the Pennsylvania State Museum.

The capitol was VERY busy, so we didn't get to take the normal tour. We spent just a few minutes on the second level of the rotunda. Even though we were there a short time, it was very obvious that the building really is priceless. There was beautiful artwork, and everything is covered with gold leaf!

The ceiling of the rotunda from the steps - a good view of some of the original artwork and gold leaf

After we left the rotunda, we visited the House of Representatives. Even though they were getting ready to go into session, we were able to learn about how the house members conduct votes, the stained glass windows that represent Pennsylvania's industries and resources, and the GIANT lights! One large light weighs as much as an elephant!

A view of the 203 seats in the House 

An example of one of the stained glass windows in the House of Representatives ~ there are similar windows in the Senate

A man who is 6 foot tall can stand inside these large lights to change the bulbs.

After leaving the House we had just a moment to walk through the Senate chamber before they started their session. It was very beautiful, but we were not allowed to take any pictures. After we finished our tour we were able to visit the interactive welcome center and have lunch before we headed off to the museum.

While there were many exciting things to see in the museum as we completed our scavenger hunts, we were most excited to see the original Charter of 1681. King Charles II of England repaid a debt owed to William Penn's family by giving Penn land instead of money. The Charter of 1681 was the official document written by the King's representative that gave this land to Penn. While there is always a copy of the charter in the museum, this year the original Charter was on display to celebrate the 335th anniversary of PA becoming a colony. It was really cool to hear about the charter, feel the material it was written on (they had a sample), see an example of the King's official seal, and see how different English was written long ago.

The first page of the Charter of 1681 kept in a temperature and humidity controlled case

One of the middle pages of the Charter - there are 4 pages all together

The final page of the Charter - the only signature on the document is in the lower right corner - it is the signature of Pigott, the King's representative who actually wrote the document. The King's seal represented his official signature.

There were some other important documents from the archives as well. One was the actual document that abolished slavery, and the other was the land grant in which the Lenni Lenape tribe agreed to allow William Penn to live on the land that was given to him by the King of England.

Treat between the Native Americans and William Penn

While a busy capitol made for a short tour, we were very lucky to be able to see this incredible documents at the museum. The capitol building and museum are both open to the public to tour if you and your child would like to do more exploring!

The Natural Wonders of the World

Thanks to a vote for informational and historical fiction reading, the kids in Mrs. Bair's reading clinic are currently learning about the 7 Wonders of the World. In ancient times, there were seven amazing creations that were dubbed the 7 Wonders of the World. Unfortunately, of those 7, only the Pyramids of Giza still remain. As part of the millennium celebration, a new list was created. And addition to the 7 finalists many other sites around the world were shared as wonders of nature, science, and technology.

Each student in the clinic is going to have the opportunity to pick from this list of 7 wonders, create their own list of questions, and create a presentation to teach the other students about the wonder. While we had some time to check over these during clinic today, many of the kids wanted to look over them at home, too. Below you will find out list, along with some new additions that I thought the kids might be interested in learning about! Happy researching!

Chichen Itza

Great Wall of China

Machu Picchu

Taj Mahal

Colosseum

Petra

Empire State Building

Itaipu Dam

CN Tower

Panama Canal

Channel Tunnel

Golden Gate Bridge

*Great Pyramid of Giza

Space Needle

Willis Tower (Sears Tower)

Burj Khalifa

Niagara Falls

Science Olympics

Yesterday we had a very exciting morning in the Bair's Den. As part of our unit on the scientific process and scientific tools, we have been learning about the different tools that scientists use for measuring and observing. We also talked about the units that are measured by each of those tools.

While it's important to understand what the tools are and what they measure, our most important lesson was HOW scientists use tools. Measuring is a very exact activity, and it takes a lot of time and patience to measure anything accurately.

To practicing our measuring skills we participated in 8 different activities that included the standing long jump, the estimation challenge, the left handed sponge squeeze, the dictionary drag, the paper plate discus, the big head challenge, the right handed cube grab, and the temperature challenge. By completing these challenges, the kids developed their skills using thermometers, measuring tapes, rulers, meter sticks, trundle wheels, balances, and a graduated cylinder.

Take a look at the pictures below to see the Olympics in action!

Grabbing cubes and determining their mass in grams

Estimating and measuring the hallway using a trundle wheel

Measuring how far we jump in the standing long jump

How many grams of force does it take to move a dictionary?

How far will a paper plate fly?

Squeezing water into a graduated cylinder to practice measuring volume

Timing 2 minutes to see the temperature of our hands

The Eagles are Back - Updated!

Today we were excited to find out that the bald eagles are back in their nest! We were able to see them adding many leaves to the nest to prepare for laying eggs! You can follow the eagles 24 hours a day by clicking here!

Thanks to Bronsyn, we have another eagle cam to follow! The Hays eagles are located near Pittsburgh, and they already have laid one egg that they are incubating in their next! You can check out their nest by clicking here.

Owl Pellets Part 2

Last Friday we wrapped up our owl pellets experiment. Not only was it EXTREMELY interesting to discover all of the creatures our owls had eaten, but we also learned some important lessons about scientists. It became obvious pretty quickly that we had to take our time and be quite careful as we were opening our owl pellets. If we went too fast we could break or damage bones, or we could have missed some of the smaller bones completely. If we went too fast, we could also break pieces off the larger bones, especially the skulls.

Bronsyn and Rommel examining their bones

Steph and Hunter working slowly and carefully to discover bones

We all really wanted to see the skulls to try and find out what types of animals we had. By looking at the shape of the mouth and seeing the location of the teeth we could determine whether we had a mole, a shrew, or a mouse.

A pile of bones including a skull, left side of pile, and a hip bone (alone at the top)

After uncovering as many bones as possible none of the groups found remains of birds. Many of our owls had eaten either mice or shrews, but we believe we also found the bones of another small creature, a vole.

It was easy to see why it takes scientists to long to make new discoveries. In order to be safe and use the tools properly, without messing up the experiment, it takes a lot of time and perseverance to complete a task. We are really looking forward to working on more experiments to use tools and hone our scientific skills.

Owl Pellets

Last week we began our unit on the tools and processes scientists use to conduct experiments and learn new thing. We very quickly realized that doing an experiment is more about learning something new rather than actually having the experiment work out the way you thought it would.

In order to put our brand new knowledge into practice, we starting conducting our first experiment that focuses on using tools safely and correctly and following the standard scientific process. We are dissecting owl pellets!!!

Ask your child to tell you about his or her owl pellets, and the steps we took to begin dissecting the pellets. We'll be continuing to explore our pellets the next two days, but to keep you all in the look we wanted you to enjoy these pictures from today!