Looking ahead... Mid-March

We are having a great time in the changing weather which is mostly  for the better.  Honey John Bob (our apple tree) has a first leaf bud!  In this blog update you’ll find:

-Capitol field trip pictures

-Spirit Week details

-Roofing adventures

-Science Experiment details

Fern Elizabeth Wilson's birthday circle

Hero captures an audience with her "in character" storytelling on St. Patrick's day.

Rainy steps of the Legislative building

Looking down on the great seal in the atrium

At the Governor's meeting table

Capitol Trip

We had a wonderful time visiting the capital.  In preparation, younger students had the chance to design their own capital campus, which meant addressing many questions.  What is a capital for?  What kind of buildings, or features serve those purposes?  What are capitals in other countries like?  We took a quick virtual tour via Google Earth of the capitals in China, Moscow, and the U.S. as part of our preparation for the trip.  We also spent some time discussing the three branches of government, along with how a bill becomes a law.

We had a great tour guide, who accepted each student’s very different set of questions effortlessly.  Some highlights were the storybook marble from Italy in the “ballroom” and scampering silently through the law library in the Supreme Court building.  Some of the books had laws from when WA was still a territory.  Isabella called them zombie books because of their worn bindings of genuine leather…

Tristan's Grandma is impressed too!

Guided imagining in the "ballroom"

Yes I'm sure that the Disney princesses would feel at home here Morgan...

You can fit a Mini Cooper in the chandelier.

The children stand reverently while the "behavior problems" goof off in the back... Just kidding!

Spirit Week this week!

Spirit Week will be as follows:

Monday:  Blast from the Past; dress in clothes from another time.

Tuesday:  Career Day; what do you want to be when you grow up?

Wednesday:  Dress as your favorite character from a book.  Bring the book if you can find it and be prepared to tell us about it.

Thursday:  Come as a twin, triplet, or quadruplet copy of somebody else in the class!

Friday:  Dress in a theme for an important cause or change you want to see in the world. 

Four square has taken over

Roofing Adventures

Some of you may have heard that the record rain last week put a wet spot on our ceiling upstairs that eventually damaged drywall.  Rob and I put in some evening time on the roof and decided that it was time to redo it.  We applied a patch to the trouble area on the roof, and to the ceiling.  We have some bids out for roofing contractors and are waiting for those to come in.  In the meantime we are making sure that our roof patch holds before repairing the drywall upstairs.  The students don’t seem to care anymore, but the sheet of plywood in the ceiling is less than ideal.  All that aside, best case scenario, we will be putting a new roof on the school this summer.  Woohoo!

Waiting for our turn

Isabella's bizarre ending pleases her!

Beginning Science Experiments

Wrapping up the storybook writing project brings us to our new writing project; a scientific experiment. Informational or ‘how to’ writing projects are an important part of Language Arts along with the scientific process skills that are developed. Many of you will remember this from last year, but for any who need a refresher, below you'll find a examples and some pictures to go with it. 

Last Wednesday we spent some time in the brainstorming stage.  Students must think of three questions which are answerable by conducting an experiment.  I need to approve the three questions, and you can all help me in this process by making sure students don’t get too invested in questions which don’t meet these criteria:

Questions must be:

-very specific 
-reasonably safe, and do-able without great expense or effort on the part of the adults
-uniquely interesting to the student
-without an answer that is obvious to the student based on previous knowledge

2nd graders will be expected to participate this year.  1st graders should attend Science Night in April so that they can see how it’s done, and are welcome to develop questions and conduct investigations which they can report on if they want to.  Many of the older students have been able to formulate three potential questions, and select one.  I encouraged them all to struggle with finding good questions, and NOT to rush into one question without following through on the process.

Many of the students remember last year's project, and are better able to construct good procedure and materials sections, along with the rest of the areas which need to be covered.  Here is an example write-up.

I.                Question:  Do microwaves travel from the outside in, or the inside out?

II.                Hypothesis:  (Be sure to include why you are making this prediction) My informal experience with heating things in the microwave seems to suggest that microwaves travel first to the surface, or outside of things, and then to the inside.

III.             Materials:  (In a list, as exhaustive as possible) Microwave, Thermometer, Pencil and Paper, Glass or microwave safe containers/plates.  Frozen or cold objects to microwave; frozen cup of water, frozen lunch item like a pot pie…

“How will I control variables?”  (This is kind of like a thought bubble, or at least the kind of thinking that needs to be encouraged, if not a part of the project/display itself!  We will be talking about this in class.)

“I will use the same type of containers or plates.  I will use the same microwave and measure the temperature with the same thermometer after the same amounts of time pass.”

(Note:  6th/7th grade must list Independent and Dependent Variables more formally)

IV.             Procedures: 

A.    Freeze water in container to be microwaved

B.     Gather materials near a freezer and microwave so that frozen items to be used don’t start to thaw.

C.     Put frozen cup of water into microwave for 30 seconds and observe melting pattern.  Record results.

D.    Repeat for another 30 seconds and observe melting pattern. Record.

E.     Repeat until pattern of melting is clearly observable. Record

F.      Record results overall.

G.    Put frozen lunch item into microwave for 30 seconds and repeat observations in 30 second stages and record results.

        
V.       Results:       

For parents:  this is where you would show numbers, measurements, a graph or a table, depending on the complexity of the experiment and the age of the student.

VI.      Conclusion:

For parents:  this is where you would write about, generalize, or “:tell the story” of your results, in a more readable form.  It often includes data landmarks like “the most” or “the least”.  What happened in the end!

VII.          Scientific concepts:

For parents:  this is where you would put definitions, or information which relates to the experiment like: who invented or discovered the microwave, what is a microwave, what is the temperature that ice melts at.  It’s a short collection of the concepts and scientific terms that are involved with your experiment, like a mini-report.



VIII.       New Question: 

For parents:  this is a new experimental question that the student comes up with after finishing the experiment, related or unrelated to the project…

I am hoping that we can finish the process of selecting questions by this coming Wednesday afternoon.  As soon as questions are approved they start drafting the sections of their project up to the end of procedures.  Then students will conduct the experiment and record results.  This can be done at home or at school depending on the experiment, and the time involved.  By the first week of April experiments involving days should be underway.  Students 5th grade and above will be required to type up a lab including all sections listed above, along with their presentation board.  Students will be shown old boards and critique them with me.  We will hold Science Night on Friday, April 17th from 7:00-8:00.  This is very similar to Special Project night, with students preparing to present their project through coaching and rehearsal.