This Year is ZOOMING By!

The past few weeks, we have been studying motion by performing tons of experiments! Monday, we learned about "zoomers" and their movement! It took a while to get them all working... and some of us weren't able to get them to zoom but we all had fun trying!

In reading, we have been focused on determine character traits. We read a chapter of "Wayside Stories from Wayside School" and created a chart to describe the first character in the story, Mrs. Gorf. We used evidence from the story to describe her character.

Then, we worked in groups to read a few more chapters - each chapter is about a different student in the school! Each group created a model of their student and wrote about their character traits! They turned out great!

Dana

Rondi

Jason

Paul

Many of these characters did not have very positive character traits - it gave us a great opportunity to discuss what kind of character WE should have!

In Social Studies, we began talking about natural resources. We are learning that we cannot use up all of our resources now... they're not so easy to get back!

In Math, we are learning to complete Missing Part Subtraction problems. These are word problems where some information is missing - for example: Kris has 25 crayons in his box. 13 crayons are broken and the rest are not. How many crayons are not broken?

Balancing Act

This week we have had a lot of practice finding balance... at least when it comes to crayfish, arcs, and triangles! Our first balance and motion experiment had us learning to use counterweights (clothespins) to balance a crayfish (made of... paper) in many different ways!

We found out we could balance our crayfish...

 on their nose...

on their side...

even on their bellies!

Candy Dandy Read Along!

On the last day of October, my crazy reading friends FINALLY got to read & munch on their hard earned candy corn! I was SO sad to miss this day, but thanks to our wonderful sub for the day I was able to get some pictures to share with you! Enjoy! I'll be back with more from this week soon!

I hope you all had a SAFE and Happy Halloween!!!

Halloween + Science = FUN!

This week we had the opportunity to participate in some exciting Halloween Science Experiments! An amazing parent volunteer came in to share these experiments with us and we had a BLAST!

Many of the experiments were done using dry ice, a super SpOoky form of matter that is just perfect for the week before Halloween! Take a peek at a few of the experiments we were able to see!

We received an "introduction" to dry ice to make sure we knew NEVER to touch it with bare hands!

When the dry ice was combined with warm water and dishwashing soap, it create large soapy bubbles that suddenly turned into a gas when we clapped our hands together!

We discovered hidden "ghost eggs" at the bottom of this jar - they were totally transparent and very fragile!

 We were each able to hold a ghost egg in our hands - a few even broke open, sending some ghosts throughout the VOE halls!

We received a little mini-lesson on the importance of recyclable materials by comparing goblin and ghost poop! (Or... styrofoam and corn starch packing peanuts) One of them dissolves in water and disappears (ghost poop!) and one stays around forever (goblin poop!). We discovered that ghost poop is definitely more environmentally friendly!  

"Boo Bubbles" made using dry ice, warm water, and dishwashing soap! We had to wear gloves because the oils on our hands will pop the bubbles immediately!

We learned a little about acids and bases by using vinegar to write secret messages... and Windex to make them appear! It was pretty exciting!

Our class is working REALLY hard to earn 10 "pumpkins" by the end of October! We have 9 pumpkins so far, and if we can make it to 10 we will earn a special activity on Halloween! We have one day left, do you think we can do it!?

 

Learning to Measure

In math, we learned how to determine length using inches, feet, and yards. We talked about using nonstandard units of measure instead of using standard tools like a ruler. First, we discovered that there were many things in our classroom that are approximately 1 inch! We used unifix cubes, paper clips, and colored tiles that are about 1 inch to compare objects throughout our room. Take a look at some of the things we found that were almost an inch! (Can you tell we also discussed the different words that mean "close to"???)

 The nose of our Jack-O-Lantern rug!

 The inch worm from our book Inch by Inch!

The height of the letter "t" on our poem of the week!

The next day, we took some time to discuss measuring in feet. We learned that a piece of construction paper is approximately 1 foot, so it is the perfect nonstandard tool for us to use! We then decided to compare the length of objects using our shoe (our own "foot!") and a piece of construction paper as a "real" foot. This helped us to see that our feet are much smaller... we would have been way off if we were sent to measure objects with "our" feet!

 Measuring the length of the ActivBoard using 1 "real foot"

Measuring the height of the Writing Center bulletin board using "our" foot!

Measuring each other in "feet"!

Field Trip FUN!

Today was our FIRST field trip of the year! We took a trip to the Altharetta Yeargin Art Museum (the SBISD Art Museum) and we LOVED it!

First, we watched a video about a woman named Maria who creates beautiful pottery by hand! We learned how careful she has to be when gathering materials, creating the base of the pottery, and glazing the pieces by hand! We also got to see a few examples of beautiful pottery like the ones made in the film.

Next, we headed into the Museum to take a tour of so many amazing artifacts from many different countries! We saw masks, statues, and animal tusks from Africa, clothing and art work from Peru and other countries, and had a chance to play with various instruments like those from around the world. We learned that many people around the world create art using whatever materials are found naturally in their country. It was REALLY cold in this part of the museum! The temperatures are kept low to ensure that the artifacts and art work stay in one piece!

Our last task was to create our own version of the pottery made by the artist in the film we watched! We used our imaginations and creativity to create pottery shapes and designs with black paper and gel markers! We were able to decide what shape our pottery would be and had freedom to decorate with whatever designs we chose!

Everyone seemed to enjoy their trip to the Art Museum so be sure to ask your student about their favorite part! We were also on our BEST behavior throughout the morning - I can't wait for our next field trip!

Welcome Fall!

I am so excited that Fall is here! Our room has been much more pleasent without having to turn the air on and off ALL day! I'm sure your students can agree that we are no long freeeezing in our room!

We finished our Texas projects and teamed up with a partner to create posters to teach our classmates about National Holidays. Here are some of our posters in-progress!

Tuesday, we will present our Holiday posters and begin talking about American Symbols!

In Science, we learned about systems and what materials are necessary to build a good structure. Each table group did their best to create a sturdy structure using just marshmallows and toothpicks. Each group did their best to create a tall tower. We learned that we need strong materials, team work, and most importantly a strong base to support the whole thing!

We also talked about states of matter the last few weeks by doing some fun experiments. We used a file to see if we could change the shape of a solid - in this case, we tried to change a sugar cube into a sugar sphere!

We also made JELLO so that we could observe a solid changing from a liquid to a solid - unfortunately some of our JELLO didn't congeal in our classroom refrigerator - but we had the opportunity to talk about what SHOULD have happened and how sometimes experiments don't work out like they should!