Flotsam-A trip around the world by our first graders! (Now second graders)

I am very excited to announce that my Google Lit Trip that I developed with the first graders has been published on the Google Lit Trip Web Site. The Lit Trip is based upon David Weisner's Caldecott winning book, Flotsam. Please take the time to check out other great Lit trips by students and teachers. A very big THANK YOU to Jerome Burg for this wonderful resource.

Here is an excerpt from the web site.

Flotsam is defined as debris floating on the ocean and is usually from shipwrecks. In the Caldecott winning book Flotsam, by David Weisner, the flotsam that washes ashore is a very special underwater camera. Come along for a trip around the world that follows the fantastical trip of a camera, the marine animals it captures on film and the children that find it.

This project was the combined effort of eight first grade classes and over 200 students. Each class listened and viewed the book Flotsam and each class was assigned a photograph from the book to investigate. Classes were divided into small groups and using Atlases and the Internet, each group decided where in the world the picture occurred. Using a large map and Wiki Stix, small groups picked locations, marked them with stickers and explained their decision making process to the whole class. Each class then voted and decided where their placemark would go on Google Earth. When all of the placemarks were decided, Mrs. Doe connected the locations with a path around the world. Students explored the Google Trip using Google Earth.

Check out the screen shots of the Google Lit Trip.

Flotsam Google Lit Trips Preview from GoogleLitTrips on Vimeo.

Second Grade Chair for a Bear Challenge

Check out the 2nd grade project, creating a chair for a bear. Students had to use the Lego Wedo sets to build a chair for a small stuffed bear. The chair needed to be at least an inch off the ground, hold the bear upright, and fit the bear. If students completed the challenge, they were asked to create an extra feature for the chair like a cup holder. This project resides on the website Voicethread.com.
Students are still in the process of adding comments. These chairs were built by Mrs. Houlne and Mrs. Zube's classes.

Welcome to 4th Grade Enrichment

We are the 4th Grade Enrichment, taught by Mrs. Doe. We will be blogging the different activities and experiments we do in enrichment class. If you are interested in our activities, then you can check in on our info on how to do the activity. You can also check in on our blog everyday to see what's happening. We just want to welcome you to our new blog, so enjoy!



 

Build Straw Rockets

The materials we used to make straw rockets were: precision straws, some clay, ( not model magic) index cards that we cut up to make wings and some tape. Our teacher ordered a straw rocket launcher that we will use to launch our rockets later on. We will go outside, and set our rocket to a forty- five degree angle. The class will launch their rockets to see which rocket went farthest and why. We will have one difference for each rocket. Our fifth grade class hopes our straw rocket experiment will be a success! We are going to launch them in the cafeteria and we are going to try two angles. The first one is a 35 degree angle and then a 90 degree angle. Here we go 5 4 3 2 1 Blast off! Wish us luck!

Visiting the Computer Lab

We visited the computer lab. We got to work on a computer. We got to play games like Geoboards and shapes. We also went on Starfall.com. We visited the computer lab twice. We learned a lot and we had fun. We like it there and we hope you like it too.
By Mrs. Harden's and Miss Gilfoyle's Class

Lego Gear Trains

After we dissected wind-up toys we built gear trains with lego pieces. We learned about drivers, idlers, and followers. We also made observations about gear speed and gear direction. Here is a picture of a gear train example.
Here is the Lego Education Site where you can view gears in action.
Lego Constructopedia
Check out this cool book on gears and simple machines.
The Lego Technic Idea Book:Simple Machines

Wind-up Toy Engineering

The fifth grade classes became doctors! We all chose a wind-up toy to disect. Then we got all of our doctor gadgets and took apart our patients. The monkey one was really hard but we did save him and put him back together. It was really fun since we got to see what was in a wind -up toy. I hope the next fith grade class really enjoys this project. Right here from your fifth grade enrichment class.