Mix-It Up Day

We were so excited to share our mega-marble roll ramps with our 4th grade buddies on Mix-It Up Day.  We appreciated their assistance in helping us repair and extend our work.

Final Balls and Ramp Challenge

Each team had a challenge to solve from building a ramp with an uphill and downhill or corner,  a jump, or a target.  Teams made a plan and then tried to execute their plan.  Every team hit a stumbling block.  Through hard work and persistence, all of the teams completed a successful project. We discussed and wrote about our work the next day.  A big part of the discussion was the importance of solving the problems.  The children realized that the problems led to new and better solutions.

Balls and ramps

We have had so much fun investigating force and motion.  As you will see in the first several photos, we began by exploring.  Our next step was to conduct experiments in which we wrote "lab reports."  Our reports had these components: question, hypothesis, materials, procedure, data, claim, evidence and reasoning.  We are getting ready for a final challenge.

Principal guest reader

We are studying about patterns and cycles of the moon and the stars.  This study has led us to wonder about space exploration.  We invited Mr. Miller, our middle school principal, to explain more about this topic to us.  He wore his NASA uniform and brought in models of space craft.  Mr. Miller's expertise and enthusiasm for this topic was contagious.  We have many books in the classroom about space exploration that we are now reading.

St. Patrick's Day

Thank you to the Curley family for sharing your Irish culture with us. We enjoyed the slide show, the stories and the 4 leaf clover cake!

Hands On Nature: water

For Hands On Nature in March we investigated the amazing properties of water.  We also wrote about our discoveries, practicing writing topic sentences and using transition words, such as: first, secondly, also, for example.