Mrs. Nygren's First Grade Class

Our teacher's name is Mrs. Nygren.  The class has some very active kids some very calm kids.  Some kids our sharing time some do not.  In our class we sit "1964 style".  Do you wonder what this is?

We like many things in our classroom. We like watching movies about penguins on the smart board.  We like doing art projects.  We made finger paint with food coloring and corn syrup.  Then we ate it!  What do you think it tasted like?

We read many books in our book boxes.  We know reading is a good brain activity and makes you very smart.  One of our favorite books is Dazzle the Dinosaur and Dinosaur Babies. 

Mrs. Henk's Third Grade Class

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Mrs. Henk's Third Grade Class

by Preeyal and Aveya

In science, we have been learning about energy. So far, we have mainly worked with sound energy.  Sounds are caused by vibrations, which are rapid back and forth movements.  We watched a tuning fork vibrate. It vibrated so much that when it was put into water, the water splattered out. We worked with sounds through solids, where we scratched a stick, sounds through water, where we used a stethoscope, and sounds through air, using a tuning fork.

In engineering, we are learning and making sounds in different ways.  We made ear harps and sound sandwiches.  The pitch, how high or low the sound is, can be changed by how long or loose the vibrating part of the object is.  If it is long and loose, it is a lower pitch, and if it is tight or short, it is a higher pitch.

A mechanical engineer from 3M came to talk with the third graders.  He talked about a lot of interesting things.  He showed us how sound travels through a spring.  First, he held both ends and then he yanked one side and stopped.  We saw the vibrations travel along the spring.  He also showed us a machine that measured hertz.  He told us that some animals are able to hear higher or lower pitches than human beings can. The unit of measurement for pitch is hertz.  Most of the students could hear up to 16,000 hertz, until they couldn’t hear anything.  He also showed us a video about human ears. We have hairs in our ears that vibrate and make the sounds that go to our brain.  If you put ear buds in your ears and listen to loud sounds, it can hurt your eardrum, or the little hairs in your ears will lie flat.  Some ear hairs will recover and some won’t.

In literacy, we have been working on nonfiction text features, main ideas, comparing and contrasting, fact and opinion, cause and effect, and summarizing.  Some students are working in groups on presentations about light and sound energy or about people who were pioneers in light and sound energy.

Exploring Motion in 2nd Grade

Mrs. Schoenbauer's class is exploring motion all day long.  We explored roller coasters.  Roller coasters can go fast and slow.  It was important to be safe so the roller coaster had to stay on the track.  The roller coaster needs a force either a push or a pull motion to make it go.  Friction helps the roller coaster slow down.  It was fun to design the roller coaster.  It was challenging to build because it was important to make sure the roller coaster was fun and interesting for the passenger.  Sometimes the design wouldn't work so we had to make it better and fix it.  We worked in groups for this project and we had to have extra good teamwork while designing our coaster.  We also had to be creative and come up with an interesting name for our roller coaster.

Our class went to the Minnesota Science Museum.  We explored the exhibits as a group.  We studied about motion at the museum. We learned about systems and how they worked. We saw Tornado Alley in the Omnitheater.  The seats were cool, they reclined and the screen came down in front of us.  We also saw the dinosaurs and the mummy.  There were so many cool exhibits to explore.  One of our favorites was the violin you played to see the sound waves.  Another was the tornado, if you put your hand in it, it would be wrecked.  We also saw magnets and how it is part of Nano Technology.  The whole trip was fun!

Some questions we still have about motion are:
1. What are Newton's Three Laws of motion?
2.  Why is Newton's third law so important?
3.  If you're going slow, how do you go fast?
4.  Why motion so important?
5.  Why do some things need electricity to move?
6.  How do you make the ball stay on the track?

We hope you will help us answer these questions!!!

Planting Seeds in Kindergarten

Mrs. Stenzel's Kindergaten class blogged "all about" the grass seeds.  Read what the students wrote below:

1.  We put soil in the can.
2.  We put in the grass seeds.
3.  We watered the seeds.
4.  We put the can in the sun.
5.  We continued to water the seeds. 

10 Simple Tips for Bringing Science into your Home

10 Simple Tips for Bringing Science into your Home

• Create a Science Station at Home

Include a Microscope, Binoculars, Magnifying Glass, Tweezers and Containers which are all tools a Scientist Needs to explore.

• Create Science Trays

Provide items on a science tray such as Magnets, Rocks, Shells or Fossils to provide opportunities to explore and investigate and question.

• Visit your local library to check out books from the Non Fiction Section

A deep understanding of a concept can come from a self-driven question.  Before you get there ask your child what they want to learn about prior checking out books.  Reptiles, solar energy, volcanos, insects, or chemistry, which topic will it be?  Keep a list posted of the Dewey Decimal System as a menu to choose from and to record on what you’ve discovered already.

• Grow a Garden

Stepping out and into your garden has so many benefits to your child.  Simple good nutrition is the first step as well as discovering the process from seed to plant to fruit or vegetables and all the stages in between.  Does your child know where potatoes grow?  Or how many peas grow in a typical pod?

• Cook with your Child

Have you ever really talked about the chemical & physical changes that happen while something cooks?  Observe active yeast?  Egg or no egg, baking soda or no baking soda?  How can kneading bread change from a sticky mess to something extremely soft and smooth? It’s all explained with science.

• Create a Science Journal

Have your children record observations of the world around them.  Create a Hypothesis for an experiment they want to do.  Encourage them to look at the world as a scientist would.

• Plan Family Outings

Plan trips that support Science Concepts they are learning at school.  A local trip to a science museum or park might be the first step to learning about the land forms and animal life in your area.  Zoo, local nursery, Pet store, Animal Rescue, or even your neighborhood can provide real life experience of many science concepts.

• Keep simple items on hand for experiments

You would be surprised with how much you can do with baking soda, vinegar, sugar, food coloring, dish detergent, glycerin, corn starch, dirt & seeds. Plus check out Steve Spangler’s Store for some amazing options for teaching children about science.

• Don’t be afraid of a little mess

• Ask questions that are open ended

This is one of the biggest keys to remember.  We need to encourage our children to think about a topic and originate their own questions and answers it prevents them from thinking outside the box.  As you see them observing something, encourage them to talk about their questions and observations.  It’s also a great way to build vocabulary too!    
Bonus Tip:  Follow Steve Spangler’s Science Experiment of the Week.  Plus don’t forget you can use Pinterest as a source for Science Experiments.  There are always amazing experiments being shared.  We have a Science Board that we encourage you to follow.
We hope that you’re able to bring science into your home with these simple tips. With these simple tips you can create great thinkers and develop a strong science background.  Plus these experiences will help to build their imaginations to form the skills necessary to discover new things for our future!



Kim Vij is the co-author of The Educators’ Spin On It . As an early childhood teacher and a mom of three, she’s learned many tips and tricks of parenting and teaching along the way in the past 20 years. She shares her “Educator’s Spin” on parenting issues and how to make learning playful and playtime meaningful. You can also join The Educators’ Spin On It on Facebook and Pinterest.

Tin Can Telephone

Materials you will need:

* String

* 2 Tin Cans

* Masking Tape (optional)

* Very Small Philips Screw Driver

Steps:

1.) Wash both tin cans out with soapy water and dry them. Make sure that the openings of the tins are not sharp. If they are, secure masking tape along the opening.

2.) With adult supervision - make a hole in the bottom (middle) of each tin can using the small screw driver. Make sure that you make a very small hole.

3.) Cut string long enough so that you can reach different rooms or reach a long distance in the yard.

4.) Thread the string through the hole at the bottom of the tin can so that the string has entered the inside of the tin can. Tie a knot big enough so that the string stays inside the  can. (You can also tie the string to a paper clip or toothpick to prevent it from slipping out of the cup/can.)

5.) Repeat step 4 with the other tin can.

6.) Hold one tin can and have someone else hold the other tin can. Walk the distance of the string so that the string in tight (not dangling).

7.) Have one person hold the opening of the tin can over his/her ear while the other person speaks into the opening of the other tin can.

Why it works: 

When one person talks into his/her can, the bottom of the can vibrates back and forth with the sound waves. Imagine the bottom of the can moving back and forth very quickly (1,000 times per second or more) with the sound waves of the speaker's voice. The vibrations travel through the string by pulling the string back and forth. Therefore, the bottom of the second cup should start to vibrate back and forth just like the bottom of the first can is vibrating, producing sound waves. The second person can hear the sound waves and, therefore, hears what the first person says.

Kindness Retreat by Sadiq

The kindness retreat was fun. It started with us going into an empty room. Then our teachers told us to go to the other room. Right when we entered the room, we saw high schoolers. Then we had to find our small group. My small group leaders name was Chris. We talked about what to do when your getting bullied. 

After that we made rainstorm sounds. Then we played a game called soul train and played a charades game with our small group. We sang songs like In the Jungle and Lean On Me. It was a competition of who was a better singer, boy vs girls the boys sang louder but the girls sang better. 

Then we ate lunch after that we had a dance party. At the end we talked about how were going to listen to the teacher and help friend. We shared who we are going to say thank you to and who were going to say sorry to. Then we got our kindness button.