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Mrs. Healey’s Classroom News (12/12/15)
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What We've Been Up To:
While the weather is a bit deceiving, you can sure feel the December excitement buzzing around SMS! Just eight school days left before our holiday break!
Some speculated that it was some sort of fan. But was it pushing the balloon through or pulling it to the next device? Do typical fans push AND pull air or just push? There was only one way to find out....
Jame Dyson and his team improved the everyday fan by creating this blade-less air multiplier! He evaluated typical fans and didn't like how the blades made them dangerous and how they also collected a lot of dust. His new invention is very safe and easy to clean! With that information in mind, our design engineers went around the room evaluating current products and weighing the good and the bad for each.
Turns out---oobleck has properties of both! To make your own oobleck mixture at home, mix 1 part water with 2 parts cornstarch (the food coloring is optional!).
For additional science practice at home, try out IXL's newest science component. It's just a trial period right now, but they have a great section on states of matter! Check out:
Have a great week! More information regarding our holiday classroom festivities will be sent home on Monday.
*Dyson Foundation: Ideas Box! Our highlight of the week, without question, has been the arrival of our "Ideas Box". The James Dyson Foundation partners with educators throughout the world to help bring engineering into the classroom. "By the time today's students graduate from college, the U.S. will need 1.65 million engineers!" The "Ideas Box" challenges students to find inspiration in everyday objects and develop ideas.
Even before discovering the contents of the box, these second graders had a lot of work to do! What is a design engineer? What do they look like? What do they wear? What kinds of tools do they use?
They then were challenged to match famous (but lesser known) design engineers with their inventions and the time period of when it was invented. This took a lot of great thinking and conversation (no, windshield wipers couldn't have just been invented in 2009!)
After this preliminary work, it was time to discover just what was in the Ideas Box. We were told it was one of James Dyson's inventions and we were sent a video clip showing the invention being used in an unusual way...
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| Mr. G is just as excited about this investigation as we are!! |
It was finally time to experiment with the invention: The Dyson Air Multiplier Blade-less Fan!
Later in the week, we had some fun reading Klutz'sBrilliantly Ridiculous Kid Inventions. It was pretty interesting what some kid inventors have come up with!!
On Friday, we culminated week #1 of the Ideas Box by simply creating! Paying special attention to which materials work best for creating, students were allowed to work individually, in pairs, or in groups to design WHATEVER they could come up with!! It was incredible!! A huge thank you to Mrs. Forest and Mrs. Joly for their help in all this creative fun :)
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| Checking out the materials table. |
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| Sketching before building. |
Next week, our design engineers will be designing and creating a prototype to improve an everyday object. Talk with your child about what they might have in mind! On Monday we will prep and plan, and on Tuesday afternoon, teaming up with Mr. G in his MakerSpace, 2H will be put to work building! I can't wait to see what they come up with :)
*Science: We've continued studying states of matter and have been paying careful attention how to write like a scientists. I have been BLOWN AWAY by their amazing lab reports and have been showing them to all the other second grade teachers. Bravo, scientists!
This week, we paid special attention to the conclusion.
Mr. Fosher came in to watch these kiddos at work. Using the question, hypothesis, and procedure they created in the previous week, they set off with their writing partner to conduct their experiment and record their results.
Ask your child what results they got and what conclusion they reached. I'm holding onto their lab reports for now, but will send them home once we've completed our unit!
Students have been doing a great job identifying whether something is a solid, liquid, or gas. They were ready to solve the ultimate question: Is Oobleck a solid or a liquid?
For additional science practice at home, try out IXL's newest science component. It's just a trial period right now, but they have a great section on states of matter! Check out:
States of matter
- B.1Classify matter as solid or liquid
- B.2Identify solids and liquids
- B.3Classify matter as solid, liquid, or gas
- B.4Identify solids, liquids, and gases
- B.5Sort solids, liquids, and gases
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Coming Up:
-December Scholastic Book Orders Due: Today! Sunday, Dec. 13th (let me know if your order is a gift)
Coming Up:
-December Scholastic Book Orders Due: Today! Sunday, Dec. 13th (let me know if your order is a gift)
-2H Holiday Gingerbread House Decorating Celebration: Wednesday, Dec. 23rd, 9:30 AM
-No School-Winter Holiday Break: Thursday, Dec. 24th- Friday, Jan. 1st
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