Buy a Wreath from a BBS Student!

By Cody (Grade 7)

It’s the holiday season again and we’ve got wreaths to sell. Last year the Black Butte School made over 5500 dollars in wreath sales and we need to make a lot more this year. Four students have been selling wreaths for a long time: Conner, Cody (me), Ilya, and Kellen. Over the years students have raised lots of money for the PTO by selling wreaths. The money mostly supplies our end of the year overnight field trip.

Over the next few years, the Black Butte School needs to get money to buy some new playground equipment. The old equipment is breaking and cracking from old age. We have to raise thousands of dollars to be able to get new playground equipment and have it installed. All of us kids will be excited to get new playground equipment.

Buying a wreath will also help Black Butte School students to go on other field trips like, the end of the year field trip planned to the Oregon coast. We also will use the money raised to get school supplies, have pizza parties, and make our education great! Please support our school, I hope all goes well with selling and happy holidays!

If you are interested please visit our website: www.blackbutte.k12.or.us where you will find the order form on our home page. You can also find the form by clicking here. OR, you can email Jane Petke, at suttle@gocamping.org

P.E. Class

by Audrie (grade 4)

I love P.E. class because the class gets to play a lot of different games like Dodgeball, Soccer, and Volleyball. The awesome Shelby likes playing butt ball. Butt ball is a game when the class is in a circle with their feet together and players try to get a ball through their classmates legs. If you get the ball through your own legs you have to turn around with your bum facing inside the circle and if someone gets it through your legs again you are out! The last one in the circle wins.

Mr.Sharp, the Head Teacher hear at Black Butte School, teaches P.E.. He is awesome at it! My favorite part about P.E. is that Mr. Sharp tries to do different games that the whole class likes. When someone doesn’t like the game we are playing Mr.Sharp does his best to make it fun. Here is an example, Shelby and I are the only girls in the class and Mr.Sharp told us we were going to play dodge ball. We were a little bit scared but it turned out to be very fun!

Kellen is a 4th grader too and he has been here since he was in kindergarten, so he has been here for 5 years. His favorite part of P.E. is soccer. He was gone the first day we played (yesterday) but we played it again and he really liked it. Athan (also a 4th grader) started at BBS this year. He likes P.E. too. His favorite game is sprout ball. Sprout ball is a game when every one stands in a field and one person has a ball. They throw it at people and if they get hit they have to sit down on the ground and wait till the person that hit you gets hit by some one else.

  If you wan’t to learn more about Black Butte School go to www.blackbutte.k12.or.us

       

Halloween Plans

by Justin (grade 5)

Halloween is around the corner and BBS is planning something fun! The upper grade class has picked costumes from the ancient times since we’re learning about ancient civilizations. Eniat said that “I picked Alexander The Great,” and Kellen said, “I picked Ramses the II.” Then the lower grade class will be whatever they want and play fun games and have treats.

I interviewed some kids about what they will do on Halloween night. Shelby said that “I will stay up as late as I can with friends and go trick or treating.” Rope says that “I will dress up as my hunter costume and go trick or treating,” and Audrie  says that she “will give out candy to trick or treaters.” Those were some of the kids plans at BBS.

Happy Halloween!

Here are some pictures from last year's Halloween celebration at Black Butte School

Metolius Hike

by Conner (grade 8)

The Metolius is a great place to hike and was wonderful for our first field studies class. We played games, hiked, and learned a lot on this trip. We hiked from school downstream and turned around at Allingham Bridge, and walked back on the other side of the river.

On our hike our main topic was “we are connected to everything.” We talked about how we are connected with animals and plants who share our habitat with us. All of us listened about what we eat and who might eat us. Also we talked about where we live and what people need to survive. We are connected to a lot in the environment.

Along the way we played some games, like camouflage and human knot. Camouflage is a game where one person is an owl who stands in their perch, they can only move in a one foot radius circle. The owl tries to find all the mice who are hiding (the mice have to stay where they can see the owl). Once the owl gives up he/she would yell "forest fire" so all the mice will come out. For human knot everyone grabs another person’s right hand across the circle and then next grabs someone’s left hand across the circle. Then we tried to untangle ourselves back into a circle. Both games were fun and taught us more about how everything is connected.

All in all we had lots of fun hiking, playing games, and learning about our environment. We all learned that we are connected to a lot. The Metolius was a beautiful place to explore these things.

Visit to Juniper Jungle Permaculture Farm

Zion (grade K) hangin' with the pigs and sporting a
mustache in honor of Mr. B's birthday

By Inanna (grade 6)

On Wednesday April 27, Black Butte School visited Juniper Jungle Permaculture Farm just east of Bend. Juniper Jungle is an organic, permaculture, biodiverse farm. They grow heirloom plants and raise heirloom animals. Heirloom food is grown from seeds or animals that have been passed down from generation to generation. The farm is a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm, meaning they sell to families and at farmers markets. By now you might wonder how they got their name, well, they are growing a jungle in the junipers, since they used permaculture principals in growing food. Sometimes permaculture principals mean that the farm could look messy like a jungle.

Jessica showing us the "jungle" in their greenhouse

Our tour guide, Jessica, did an amazing job showing us around. Jessica showed us their beautiful, giant pigs. Next, she showed us the cows. They have two milking cows. After we checked out the cows, we headed over to the greenhouses. Their greenhouses are wild and crazy. They don’t do anything to contain the wildness of the plants, they just let them do what they want and produce their seeds. This returns needed nutrients back to the soil. We all ate our fair share of dill before walking outside for some rock chucking. No, we did not actually CHUCK the rocks, we carried them. Our task was to clear the field of rocks. There were a few giant monster rocks buried several feet underground. We all dug and dug until we couldn’t dig anymore. Sheesh were we tired.

Students helping remove large rocks and
weeds from a field

After chucking rocks, we went and checked out the canal. Juniper Jungle pulls the water, in a canal, from the Deschutes River. Soon after, we had lunch and wrote in our journals. All in all, our Juniper Jungle Farm visit was amazing and fun. Hopefully we will be able to go back soon! If you want to learn more about their farm check out their website: http://juniperjunglefarm.com

Planting with Vermiculture (aka Worm Poo)

by Shelby (grade 7)

The Black Butte School has made their own red worm farm where we compost certain foods and hope to help our ecosystem. Just recently, the we started an experiment where we planted different plants in four different kinds of soil. The various soils are: local (dirt that comes from right by our school), potting soil (from our local stores here in sisters), vermiculture, and a special mix between the vermiculture and potting soil. “What’s vermiculture?” you ask. Well, vermiculture is pretty much worm poo. Yep, i just said it. Worm poo. A fun fact is that every piece of soil on planet earth has gone through a worm’s digestive system.

So far, we have two bins filled with worms and compost. We are so excited to see how our plants and compost/worms turn out and that we can continue our collection for the next years to come. Maybe we will even build a garden!













More information from Ilya (grade 6) on how to take care of worms...

If you are interested in making your own worm bin, here is what you need: a bin (make sure to poke holes in the bin’s lid and bottom), a water catcher (for underneath the bin), bedding (peat moss and shredded newspapers). You will also of course need food for the worms such as kitchen greens, vegetable scrapings from plates, potato peels and other vegetable peels, fruit (but not citrus), egg shells crushed, cereal, grain and grain products, and tea bags and coffee grounds. Worms don't like to eat dairy products, meat, citrus, or plants in the onion family (onions and garlic), which are antibacterial. Worms mainly eat the bacteria that grow to breakdown the plants, so antibacterial foods wont work! For more detailed information on making a worm bin check out this article on Mother Earth News.

March Madness

by Conner (grade 7)

March Madness has come to Black Butte School.  Mr. B has challenged the older class to complete the NCAA Basketball Tournament bracket for 2016.  There are 68 teams competing in the NCAA Tournament divided into 4 regions (south, west, mid-west, and east).  On the bracket we have to choose which team will win each game, narrowing it down to one overall winning team.

Some students are deciding winning teams randomly or flipping a coin, while others use team stats to make logical decisions.  I am using the web-site www.kenpom.com to look at stats.  I’m using the stats on average offense and defense to help me decide.  Using the stats uses math in the real world.

As a class we will study results and add up who gets the most teams right.  There may be a prize for the person that has the most teams correct.  Mr. B and Scott McNitt, our bus driver, are completing brackets too.  It’s fun to have a competition.  Black Butte School is in the spirit of March Madness.