All About Electricity!

As part of our unit on electricity, please visit this website!  You will find 5 sections.  Each section has information, an activity, and a quiz.  Play around on the site and see what you can find out!

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE ACTIVITY!

Henry's Freedom Box

This morning our school watched a dramatic presentation of the book, Henry's Freedom Box.  Students heard this book read aloud during lunch last week, and today actors from the Book-It Reperatory Theater performed this amazing true story for us. 

Henry Brown was born a slave, and after being separated from his wife and young children, he decided to risk everything for his freedom.  He sealed himself into a box and shipped himself through the mail to Philedelphia, PA.  Using the Underground Railroad and friends along the way, he made it to freedom, although he never saw his family again.

After the performance our class had a wonderful discussion about what it means to be a slave, and why we don't have slaves in our country anymore.  Students, in the comments below please continue this conversation. 

What did this play make you think about? 

What questions do you still have about Henry or about slavery?

Watch the Rock Cycle in Action!

Don't you wish you could watch the rock cycle in action?  It's hard to imagine how a process that takes millions of years works, because it's nothing we can observe in our lifetimes. 

Well, someone put together an animation that shows you exactly what happens as rocks travel through the cycle, becoming igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary!


CLICK HERE to watch!

Fossil Lab

Oh dear, another late post!  Well, better late than never, right?  :)

To kick off our unit on rocks, minerals, and fossils, we had the fabulous experts from Science To Go come to our school and teach a one-hour lab all about fossils!  Students learned how both mold and mold-cast fossils are formed, then they worked in teams to visit stations, explore real fossils, and answer questions to increase their knowledge of how fossils are formed and what they can tell us about the past.

 



Wayside Wednesday

My apologies for taking so long to post photos from our very fun Wayside Wednesday book celebration! 

We had a fantastic time seeing each other's costumes, testing our knowledge of the Wayside School books, and pretending to be students on the 30th story of Wayside School!  A big thank you to parents for helping your children put together such imaginative costumes!

Three "Leslies" and a "Paul"

Two "Bebes"

A very green-haired "Stephen!"

The faculty of Wayside - "Louis," "Miss Zarves," "Dr. Pickell," and "Mrs. Drazil"

Six very sleepy "Sharies" - aren't they wonderful students??

"Calvin" and his potato tattoo!

"Eric" - the nice one!

"Hobo Bob," "Todd," and "Mac"

A very grumpy "Kathy,"  two "Myrons" (and his bird, Oddly), and Xavier as "Xavier!"

Bob Jackson's Mineral Lab

Yesterday local geologist Bob Jackson came to our classroom to teach us all about identifying minerals!  He brought the materials needed to test 18 different minerals for hardness, streak color, and cleavage (how the mineral breaks).  Working in teams, students tested and identified the mystery minerals as quickly as they could - and every mineral they correctly identified, they got to keep!  Every student went home with a brand-new mineral collection, along with an identifying sheet.

Mr. Jackson runs Geology Adventures, which gives people the chance to go hunting for crystals, amber, and rocks with this fabulously knowledgeable retired geologist.  If you're interested in learning more about what geologists do, be sure to check out his site!

Fun Website!

Hey geologists!  Ms. DeTolla just told me about this very fun website, full of links to geology games and quizzes.  Check it out!

http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/K12/games.html