May the Force Be With You...

We have started our study of forces, motion and simple machines. We began by talking about two forces-pushing and pulling. We experimented with those forces by building aluminum foil boats and pushing and pulling them in different ways in the water.

We then explored the force of gravity. We held up our arms and felt how tired they got over time because of gravity. We then made 3-D marble mazes and used gravity to manipulate the marble through the maze. The children were SO creative with ramps, hiding places, scoring areas, traps, etc. I was extremely impressed with them! Now we are going to work with magnetic forces before embarking on the second half of our unit of simple and complex machines after Spring Break...




Have a great week off and may the force be with you....

Scientist of the Week!

Did you know that you can blow up a balloon with vinegar and baking soda? Thanks to our latest scientist, we do! Our scientist did a great job of talking us through her entire experiment. The first time, the balloon did not get a perfect seal and we could hear the air escaping-it was very cool! Our scientist repeated the experiment, and we were so excited to see the balloon get so big. We have enjoyed watching the balloon slowly shrink each day in the science center. Great job!

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

We had Super week-long celebration of Dr. Seuss' birthday. We kicked it off with Mixed Up Monday and wore crazy clothes (turning our stuff inside out if we forgot). We read Horton Hatches an Egg and then made our own mixed up organisms.
On Top Hat Tuesday, we read the Cat in the Hat books and then created our own Cat in the Hat adventure. We made a special cover for the book by painting our feet like the Cat in the Hat.
Wacky Wednesday gave us a chance to wear our jammies to school and eat Green Eggs and Ham..more than half of our class had never tried it before! The final votes was 17 yum's and 2 yuk's.
On Theodore Thursday we graphed our favorite Dr. Seuss books and shared them during GRAB time. The Lorax had the most followed by The Grinch and Bartholomew and Oobleck.
For Fox in Socks Friday we got to go all day without our shoes in our crazy socks. We counted up the times Mrs. Thompson's tongue got twisted reading the book and we watched The Lorax. You can check out our stories on the hallway bulletin board.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had so much fun celebrating this sweet holiday! We were surprised when Mr. Thomson and Mrs. Pundt came to visit and facepaint hearts for us. Thank you to my many wonderful parent volunteers for making run so smoothly. The lovebug cookies were fun to make and the cupcakes so yummy to eat, and we had fun playing the game "Steal My Heart." The children used chopsticks to try and get as many conversation hearts as they could in one minute. It was the quietest they have been all year! The best part of course was delivering and opening our Valentine cards!

Scientist(s) of the Week(s)

Sorry guys-a little late to post again...we had two fabulous scientists the past few weeks. One was a "diving" experiment in which a toy diver was placed in a bottle of water and made to float and sink with the exertion of pressure on the bottle. The kids were so excited to see it sink!


Another great experiment was building a model volcano. The eruption was extremely cool...if you are going to do it go with plain old vinegar as opposed to apple cider vinegar-much more of an eruption!