Just a reminder that the Take Home Challenge is due tomorrow. Each child should bring his or her display board to the science room at some point during the day tomorrow, November 4th. I am so excited to see all of the cool experiments that have been going on for the last month!!!
This week, 5th graders learned about the inner layers of the Earth. The students are working in teams to turn this information into a scaled model. As a class we calculated that the scale is 1cm=300km. Ask your child which layer of the Earth they are constructing.
This week the 3rd grade students took the first steps to becoming inventors. In science, we examined an invention, the paper lunch bag. Students observed attributes of the bag, as well as possible problems with the current invention. Some student responses were, "too many trees have to be cut down to make paper bags," "you can't see what's in the bag without opening it," and "you can't hold anything wet in it or it will break." Next the students brainstormed extensive lists of all the bags that they could think of, both usual and unusual. Some unusual examples were, pillowcase, purse, cargo pocket, and tea bag. We discussed that slight improvements on the common bag have led to inventions that solve particular problems in people's lives. Students are currently thinking of problem situations or problem objects in their own lives that can be solved with improvements to current inventions, or new inventions.
Ask your child what usual and unusual bags they came up with during the brainstorm!
For a special Halloween science class, the 4th and 6th grade students made a bubbling witch's brew of water, vegetable oil, food coloring, and alka seltzer tablets. The project gave us a great forum to talk about density of liquids AND have some fun too! Here's a video to get a better sense of the project.
5th graders continue to familiarize themselves with the Earth through mapping coordinates. Ask your student about the fictitious country he or she mapped today.
Ask you 3rd grader to tell you how it was possible that a student was able to lift up Ms. Macaulay with just a board and brick!!!
Ask your 5th grade student about the game we are using to determine what percentage of the Earth is water and what percentage is land.