Position Activity

To kick off our new unit of study about motion and sound we learned some important words about positions to help us understand where objects are in relationship to other things. We began by playing a game of I-spy using position words. Then scientists chose 5 objects from their tool kits and positioned them any way they wanted. 

Next, their partner studied the position for a few moments and then turned around or closed their eyes. They then moved one object. Their partner turned around and had to tell them what had moved and how, using position words. 

We had lots of fun and some even tried a challenge and moved 2 objects. You can do this at home too. Check out the one below and see if you can describe how the objects moved.

Give it a try at home, this is something fun that older or younger siblings would have fun with too.

A Few Classroom Needs

This week in one of our learning stations we are hunting through magazines looking for signs we see all around. We use magazines for various different things throughout the year and my collection is quite used up. As you are spring cleaning and getting rid old magazines consider recycling them in our room for use in our learning stations. Just be careful that they are appropriate, as much as I love my People magazine, they sometimes sneak in stuff not intended for little eyes. If you are like me and subscribe to Women's Health or Men's Health these are great but sometimes have adult topics, if you want to donate these just please tear out or cut out any questionable material. 

Also with PASS testing coming up for the older kids, we are having to take our recess at various times and most days on the bus loop :( The kids don't like the bus loop. But it is important for them to get out and play. If anyone would like to donate a big bucket of sidewalk chalk that would be awesome. I used up all of mine on our shadow experiment. 

Inspired by Jerry Pallotta

As you know we had the amazing opportunity to have an incredible author come and visit our school. We began the morning with kindergarten and other first grade classes in the theater for a very entertaining learning experience. Mr. Pallotta shared with us some of his books that he has written and even some that haven't been finished yet. How cool is that, we got a sneak peek! Students got to see where his inspiration comes from for his books and how learning about science can be fun. Jerry Pallotta is well known for the many ABC books he writes. These are not ordinary ABC books, but ABC books with tons of facts about many different topics. Here are just a few.

When then had the opportunity to go back to the theater later that afternoon and ask him some of our questions and things we were still wondering about after watching and listening to his presentation that morning. We got to go onstage and ask him ourselves. 

Here are a few things we learned about Mr. Pallotta and his writing.

And as if that was not enough learning from Mr. Pallotta, he even inspired us as writers. With the help of our fabulous Media Duo, Mrs. Gramling and Mrs. Beachler, we researched information and wrote our very own Animal ABC e-book. Take a listen. Our writers did an amazing job. Thanks Mr. Pallotta for inspiring us  :D

Animal ABC

Click on the link 

Jupiter and Venus

Ok, so how fitting is it that we are finishing our study of things in the sky and the last few nights have been the best nights to view Jupiter and Venus in the western sky. Last night my family and I ate dinner under the stars and talked about these two planets. If you have some binoculars or even a telescope, last night you could see Jupiter's moons. Hopefully tonight they will be just as clear and you and your family can go out and take a look. I explained to my kids that Venus looked bigger in the sky because it is closer to us, but that Jupiter is much farther away and really A LOT bigger. Have your scientist share his or her observations with us too!

This is how they appeared in the sky last night.

Jupiter

Venus

Shadows

As we are finishing up our study of things in the sky, the weather today proved to be perfect for our exploration of our shadows:D We have been rained out the last 2 times we have tried. We observed our shadows at three different times today. The first was at 9:00am. We observed that our shadows were long and skinny. We went back out at 11:30 to observe the change. Have your scientist tell you what he or she observed about their shadow and check out the pictures from our first two observations.

We went out one final time at 1:10 to see if our predictions about how our shadows would change was an accurate prediction or if we needed to change our thinking. We discovered that our shadows moved again. We observed that the sun was in a different place in the sky each time we went out. Check out our pictures from the last observation.

We had tons of fun exploring and learning about how the earth turns. Try this at home, all you need is some sidewalk chalk and a sunny day. Feel free to email me your pictures of your shadow changes and I'll put them on the blog.