Halloween Mission Party 2019

     Can you believe its already Halloween? The HCA tradition continued this year to have fun and raise money for the SHJC missions at the same time. It was a short week filled with review and tests so enjoy these pics from the 2019 HMP!

                         

The Peanuts Gang!

Lucy and Charlie Brown!

                      

                     

The 6th grade also helped the 7th and 8th grades run activities for the Lower School and Early Childhood children. They did a fantastic job as school leaders!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

MS Science- 5th Grade Owl pellet lab

     The 5th Grade is currently exploring populations, communities, and ecosystems in science class. One of the favorite activities in this unit is examining owl pellets. The remains of prey captured and eaten by owls can provide information on the types and quantities of prey populations in ecological communities where owls live. The pellets are the indigestible remains of things such as mice, voles, and even birds captured and eaten by owls.

     Each student received a pellet and the class took two days to carefully dissect the pellets. Prior to dissection, we measured the length and determined the mass of each pellet using the metric system. We then averaged the totals for each data set to find an average weight and length.

Then the dissection began and each student was able to examine the fur and bones left behind. Then, using a chart supplied by the pellet provider, the type of bones and creature it came from were identified. 

Great fun was had and good science was practiced by each student!

Grade 6 HR and science news

     The Sixth grade led a wonderful prayer service for the Holy Child Academy community this week. The theme was service and each grade was commissioned by Ms. Kathol and Mrs Myers for their year-long focus on a particular service commitment. The Sixth grade's year long service focus is Sonshine Academy in Drexel Hill. The students actually visited there yesterday with Mrs. DeLuca for LA and read a variety of books to appreciative students of different ages.

        In the classroom,Grade 6 investigated the difficulties of cleaning up an oil spill. After learning about the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, we did a hands-on activity to see how difficult it is to contain oil in water. We used rocks to simulate the effect of oil on the shoreline and feathers to see what it does to birds unfortunate enough to be in the area of a spill.

                      

                      

                     

                                             

     Finally, the 6th grade helped supervise the EC and Lower School students during the Founder's Day celebration during Community Time today. Despite the blustery conditions, a wonderful time was had by all celebrating the gifts of a Holy Child education!

6th Grade investigates biodegradability and Grade 7 learns the microscope

     The 6th Grade is currently studying Natural Resources and gaining an understanding of how we obtain and use both renewable and non-renewable resources. After learning many plastics are derived from petroleum resources, we decided to investigate the biodegradability of plastics. Sophia brought in some compostable "plastic" utensils to test against regular plastic utensils we had on hand here at HCA.

     We described our experiment in a previous blog post and today we dug up our first set of buried utensils (both plastic and biodegradable) from the organic garden exactly one month after first "planting" them.

 

     Unfortunately, our markers in the garden were disturbed despite the DO NOT TOUCH signs but the 6th grade persevered and dug up the first set of plastic and biodegradable utensils and took them back to the lab for evaluation.

     Each of the utensils (knife, fork, and spoon of each type) was cleaned of dirt and weighed on the triple-beam balance. Their masses were recorded by Tom on the computer.

     The results showed that not much change in masses had occurred but this was the first of three buried sets to be measured. We will do the second set in another 30 days and the final set right before Christmas (yes, Christmas) break. This exercise is helping our first year Science Fair students get hands-on experience with the different parts of the requirements for their experiment and research paper while learning about natural resources and the long life of plastics in our environment.

     Grade 7 began their introduction to the wonders of the microscope with the newest additions to our lab, four new Wolfe microscopes. They learned the proper way to transport them and the various parts that are used to magnify specimens as well as how to calculate the total magnification based on which lens they were using. They would agree that an entire new world is opening up for them!