Data, Graphing, and Science Investigations

I will start by apologizing for not getting a post up last week.  The end of the week hit and I somehow ran out of time, so I told myself I would do it Sunday evening and then that didn't happen either.  So this post, hopefully shouldn't be too long, but will cover the last two weeks in the classroom.
We finished up our Graphing and Data unit in math.  For our culminating project the students created group graphs based on their own surveys.  We had many that asked about favorite movies and we also had a couple groups that asked about other favorites.  The process involved the students creating a survey and then asking that survey among each of the class members and collecting the data.  Then as a group they created a bar graph to represent their data.  The students worked very hard on these and it was quite exciting to see the results.

Surveying the class

The finished products --- all 6 bar graphs

In science, we finished off the investigations involving erosion.  The students were given a tower of sand and they had to create a device to prevent water AND wind erosion.  Each group did not have much to work with.... one piece of string, some foil, one coffee filter, a piece of mesh cloth, 4 large popsicle sticks, and 2 small popsicle sticks.  

After the structures were built, each group was given an eye dropper with water to be the "rain," and each student was given a plastic straw to be the "wind."  Once all of the "erosion" was complete, we removed the structures and the students made observations in their science notebooks about how much of a change occurred between the two types of erosion to their sand tower.

For this current week I don't have near as many pictures as I thought, but we did quite a bit in the classroom this week.  Our new unit in math is focusing on numbers to 1,000 and we have been writing these numbers in expanded notation, word form, and representing them using blocks, sticks, and cubes.  The students have also been working on projects in our Google CS-First curriculum.  We were able to complete activity 3 today using the scratch.mit.edu platform.  It is incredible to think that February is almost half-way done.  The coming weeks we will be doing a lot in the classroom.  

As a side note, a permission slip was sent home this week for our walking field trip to the Kelseyville Post Office.  These permission slips are due on Feb. 23rd.  Also the trip itself is on Thursday, March 9th, which is a minimum day.  The permission slip says we will arrive back at the school at 1pm, but that is not correct.  We will be back to the school by 12pm, so that students will still be dismissed at 12:20.  A note is going home about this on Monday.  So sorry for any confusion this may have caused.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Erosion Fun!

With all of the rain we have been having lately, I felt it was the perfect time to start talking about erosion.  My original plan was to walk around the school and find some examples of what might be erosion, but since the rain didn't really let up much this week that might have to be a continuation lesson for next week.  For our main investigation this week, the students were put into pairs and built a sand tower.  The students took a cup full of sand and turned it upside down onto their work surface.  Then each pair of students was given a water dropper and had to add water to their tower.  Some groups counted on drops for a very short time and some continued to count for quite awhile.

Before Erosion

Before Erosion

Before Erosion

Before Erosion

Erosion in Action

Our lowest number of drops before there was a change was 47 and our highest number of drops before there was a change was 201.  We discussed how if you drop the water in the same place the whole time, then that area will erode faster and there will be a change sooner.  The students noticed that if you spread out the drops of water, then it took much longer (and more water) to erode.  As a class we also talked about how each of the towers were shaped differently to begin with, even though they all used the same type of cup to form their towers.  

Later we watched this video on erosion.

We ended the activity with each student eating a lollipop (as discussed in the video) and talked about some facts about erosion.

Yummy Erosion!

Our latest addition with our Class Dojo points, is our Class Dojo Star.  This goes to the student who has the most points at the end of the week.  They get a very special reward and get to sit at a desk all by themselves, where they have their own special supplies and they get to sit in a fun decorated desk.  The student has the choice to sit there everyday of the following week and it really sets them apart as someone who is doing what they need to in class.  Check out our first Class Dojo Star!

Have a great weekend!