California Love

I have meant to write about my move here in Los Angeles, California but I could not seem to find the time to do so.

I loved D.C., still do – it is very walkable. You can walk everywhere. I could walk a few blocks and get to our local grocery – Harris Teeter (which I love and miss dearly) and if you’re on a brave mood, Safeway is just next door. We lived in Adams Morgan area and there was a lot of places to go.

I used to walk to my workplace everyday. My walk would involve me passing by Meridian Hill park. I would make sure to walk through the park so I can get a good view of the towering Washington Monument, directly south off the park. It was always a beautiful sight. It never got old.

A promising school in North Hollywood paved my way to move here in the summer of 2017.

So many things have happened since then – I managed to hike the Cucamonga Peak with my husband; had my family come all the way from the Philippines to the US to attend our renewal of wedding vows; moved to Koreatown; collaborated with great people; and the list goes on.

But one thing remains the same, my passion for facilitating classroom activities to support student learning is still on point. Check out our classroom to see what our middle school students have been up to this past school years. Our Science Fair this school year had a huge turn-out with guest judges from the community supporting our students’ investigative projects.

Let me leave you with some 3D pathogen clay models that my 8th graders made in one of our life science units.

Hopefully, this will not be my only post this year. Paalam for now, friends!

Making Marshmallow Babies

  • Lesson: Inheritance and Traits
  • Starter: Inventory of Traits
  • Class Practical: Making Reebops Babies
  • Breeding Reebops Babies Class Practical Photos
  • Inventory of Traits Activity Photos

Last week, the 6th graders explore how each organism has a distinguishing characteristic called a trait and how many traits are passed from one generation to the next during reproduction.

We started this lesson off by watching a Brainpop video on heredity. This video has an easy-to-follow description on why you’re taller than your parents, or why you have blue eyes when your parents have brown eyes.

From there, the students took an inventory of their own easily- observable genetic traits. Working in small groups, they observe how their trait inventories differ from those of others. Students record their observations in a data table and compared the most and least common traits within their group.

In the Science lab, the students were given instructions to breed a male and a female Reebop in order to make a baby Reebop, and find out what it might be like. Students work in pairs with guided student procedure sheets, envelopes of chromosomes, a decoder key and the materials to build their baby Reebops.

I prepared extra marshmallows as a reward when students successfully bred (a.k.a. completed) their baby Reebops. This was also one way to prevent them from eating off the marshmallows used in their practical work.

References:

  1. Inventory of my traits
  2. Brainpop: Heredity
  3. Inventory Checklist Reference
  4. Making Reebops Resource Page