Evaporation...

This week in science, we examined "evaporation".  Students were given the challenge of making five drops of water evaporate (any way they could).  In our first trial, the times were all over the place... from about one minute thirty seconds to over four minutes.  But... someone figured out that RUBBING the water on the desk made it go away fast.  So in our second trial, we decided to tighten our "variables" (a concept discussed the week before), and have everyone rub the water drop.  In this trial, everyone was done in less than thirty seconds!  The challenge was a great way to not only reinforce the science experiment concepts discussed previously, but also deconstruct one component to the water cycle and see it in action... in our classroom.  

Typing and watering...

Last week, students were introduced to "Type to Learn", a program that helps students work on their typing speed.  As many of us type more than we handwrite nowadays, it's important that children can do this with ease.  As I'm typing this to you, I'm using the "home row" on the keyboard and not looking at my fingers, thanks to my typing teacher in high school.  (of course, I learned how to type on a thing called a "typewriter"... something these kids literally have no context for!)

We also conducted a science experiment with water... continuing our "water cycle" study.  We observed three different liquids on wax paper... "water", "detergent" and "rubbing alcohol".  We worked on figuring out the different "properties" that each liquid has.  You can clearly see in the photo below how the water and alcohol form tall blobs of liquid, while the detergent spreads out.  We will continue this work around "surface tension" this week.  

The water cycle...

This week in 3 K/M, we began to shift back to science.  We have begun a unit titled, "Water Cycle:  A Raindrop's Journey Through Massachusetts".  Students completed some pre-assessment work by answering questions such as, "One day you notice after a hard rain that there are many puddles on the playground.  The next day there are no puddles.  What do you think happened to the water?"  Another question they pondered was, "Water often gets dirty after it is used.  Why don't we run out of clean water?"  After some time to think, reflect and write, we had a class discussion.  Then we read the book "A Cool Drink of Water" by Barbara Kerley.  If you have not seen this book and love good photography, you should take a look.  Many of the photos are visually stunning... from all over the world.  Students in 3 K/M are world travelers... knowing many of the places in the book!  Yet another rich discussion around water.  Soon we will dive deeper (no pun intended!) into the workings of the water cycle and its affect on all of us.

On another note... be sure to sign up for your spring conference via our form at:

http://krascomaxwell.pleasebringit.com/events/42459

All the best!

 

Finishing up our Mass. biographies...

We have been working on our biography projects for some time now and the children are close to being finished.  We've researched our topic with multiple sources, collected notes and sorted them (with help from librarian Ms. Szaro).  Then, we crafted a three paragraph essay about our person.  Finally, we have been creating "voicethreads" (www.voicethread.com) about our person (with help from tech. specialist Mrs. Tenhor).  Here are a couple of snapshots from today.  About half the class is finished... and most will be done by the end of the week. Soon, we will watch and comment on each other's projects, then they will be posted here for you to celebrate as well!  What a wonderful project to enjoy that won't be rolled up or thrown out when it gets home!  

Valentine's Day...

Here are a few (belated) photos from our Valentine's Day celebration prior to vacation.  Thanks to all the parent volunteers who visited to create our wonderful presents!  And an extra thanks to Kathy T. for sending in the photos.