Coral Reefs and Relationship

1/30/2023

manna moment

Let's think about this: Our God, the One who holds our world and universe in His mighty hand, loves relationships. He is One God in three persons and therefore has always been in close, harmonious relationship with Jesus, His Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is through Jesus that God created by the Holy Spirit. Adam and Eve were part of His creation and they were perfect and in perfect relationship with God where God could walk and talk with them in the garden. Can you imagine? This was the norm until sin was chosen and separated them from God. Sin separated and divided but God desired reconciliation so much that He sent His Son to die, to take our sin and be separated for the first and only time from the Father so that we can be reconciled back to God. Relationship means that much to God. You mean that much to God. Confess Jesus as Savior for He is worthy. Repent and turn from sin and be free to live for Jesus. It is no wonder that He has placed relationship so abundantly throughout His creation. Every time you see a relationship, remember our God of relationship. One example in nature is through mutualism, a symbiotic relationship where two different species help each other. Thank You Lord for Your relationship to us and that we can see your love for relationship reflected throughout Your creation.

Review

Before we jumped into the Coral Reef, I had the students review the ocean zones we learned last week as well as the ocean animals that are found in each zone. This brought me to asking them the question of what ocean zone they thought they would find the Coral Reef

read aloud: Magic School Bus Takes a dive

While the Magic School Bus series are not creation based, the older versions do not have as many references to evolution as the newer books do.
This book highlights four different mutualistic, symbiotic relationships in ocean animals whose habitat is the coral reef. Since this is a story of class discovering new things, it intrigued my class well.

Before I began reading the book, I gave each of my students this note taking sheet. They were able to follow along as we learned different things about the coral reef.

Partner Up!

When we finished learning about the different mutualistic, symbiotic relationships, I had the students pair up. We then played three- legged races and blindfolded obstacle courses. The student's had to learn to work together or fall, communicate or fall and had the responsibility of leading each other safely through obstacles. Check out the fun and the relationships of these wonderful students. Jesus makes all the difference in relationships.

My partner led me so well! I didn't bump into anyone or anything. All the students took great care with one another and I was very impressed and delighted.

They did it!!
Sweetness!!!
Thank You Jesus!!!

The students in the Route 104 Airstream had significantly less obstacles, however, they did have to avoid running into each other. They did great!

And sometimes, your partner will just pick you up and carry you through the obstacles. Love it!

Coral Reef Sheet

For the students activities at home this week, they will color, cut, and paste their own coral reef. I encouraged them to use all sorts of colors. The Route 104 crew were able to get a five minute head start on this.
This sheet is different from the other biome sheets in that there is not a food chain to fill in. Instead, there are the symbiotic relationships that we learned about today.