Month: March 2013

The Big Bang of Space Inquiry

Mrs. Eaves Uncategorized ,

We had fun learning through our reading, writing and researching about space.  Here are some of our thoughts.

My favorite part was putting my constellations poster on display. It was interesting that the Big Dipper is not a constellation.  There are 88 constellations.  There are so many. I hope people noticed how much work I put into my display.

It is fun and I learn.  The Milky Way can hold up to 400 billion stars.  The Milky Way is big.  That it has 400 billion stars.

The best part was gathering information for my trifold.  The Kuiper Belt is 20 to 200 more massive compared to the Asteroid Belt.  The Oort Cloud is outside around our solar system.  The Hale-Bopp comet has three tails.

Making the trifold and doing research it was so fun!  Kuiper Belt Objects are called KBO’s.  Pluto was downgraded in 2006.  Pluto has three moons.

Finding out about the dark spot on Neptune.  Neptune has a 165 year orbit around the Sun, but it only has a 16 hour day.  All the amazing pictures and facts.

 

 

 

 

 

I had a lot of fun learning all about Mars like the volcano, moons and water.  There are two moon.  I think that is very cool.  There is water on the top and bottom and that was cool because I never knew that.  Most people think there is only one moon called Demios, but there are two: Phobos and Demios.

 

 

My favorite part of the museum was sharing with everyone.  The pressure at Uranus’ core is 8 million bars.  Uranus is the only planet found by telescope.  These are my favorite facts.  I hope people learn something new and enjoyed my display – also all the the displays.

 

 

The best part of the research was working with my friend and learning about Saturn.  The two most interesting facts I learned about Saturn were that Saturn’s core is the size of Earth and that Saturn’s rings are organized by the first seven letters of the alphabet.  Saturn is interesting.  Even thought Saturn is a gas giant it has six layers.

I had a lot of fun learning with Garrett about Saturn.  Saturn’s moon, Titan, is bigger than Mercury.  The tiny core of Saturn is the size of Earth.  The facts and the trifold and we got to work together.

The best part of the research was getting to put the trifold together.  The two most interesting things I learned were there 12 people gone to the moon.  I thought only Neil Armstrong went to the moon.  The moon can show up in different colors.  The moon can be orange.  I hope people noticed that it worked on it to impress people.

The easiest things for me to do were:  the research, planning and making my display and the typing.  Lightning is hotter than the Sun.  I was amazed.  I didn’t know that before.  The sun will die in about 5.6 billion years.  I was amazed because I thought is would be shorter.  They noticed the research and how I put the display.

 

I like making Venus – the little planet for my poster.  I like that its a planet that rotates backwards compared to all the other planets.  I think it’s a cool display and it had cool facts on it.

 

 

 

I like making my trifold and seeing how great everybody else’s was.  I think the most interesting thing I learned is that there is an Asteroid Belt.  I just thought asteroids were flying out in space.  I liked by 3-D asteroid.  I put two pieces of black paper together with tape nad made a slot in the tape.  I put a gray oval through the slot and it was 3-D.

In my research the best part was getting the information.  One of the most interesting pieces of information was that there are 88 constellations.  It is amazing how many there can be.  There’s probably thousands of stars making them.  Another one of the most interesting pieces of information is that the Big Dipper is not technically a constellation.  It’s part of one called Ursa Major.  During our museum I hoped that people would notice my hard work and my information.

I liked making my poster and learning new stuff about black holes.  The first most interesting fact about black holes is you can escape from them.

The best part about the inquiry was learning new information.  I was excited to learn that a meteorite crashed in Russia while I was learning about it.  A meteoroid goes 2,500 time faster than the fastest baseball pitch.  I thought that was exciting.  How large is the second largest meteoroid?  It was 15.5 tons.

I liked all of my research.  I liked going on the computer and with books and building my model.  Jupiter is 480 million miles from the Sun.  Jupiter in named after one of the Greek Gods.  I liked sharing all my work and my model of Jupiter.

Our Week – March 22

Mrs. Eaves Weekly Newsletters

Fact Thanks

Yesterday there was a buzz in the classroom.  The class was excited about the fact check.  They had been practicing and they felt they would improve their scores.  They were happy when the time was up.  A couple kids commented that they weren’t sure they had done more, but they were sure that they had tried some of the facts that challenged them.  They hadn’t skipped over them.  There were two kinds of accomplishments yesterday – more speed with accuracy, and more awareness of the fact that challenge.  We’ll check again next week.  So far the record is 69 of 70 problems done in 3 minutes and 5 seconds!  That is called knowing the basic facts!

Space Museum Change

Big Bang of Space Inquiry – March 28, 2013 6:15 pm to 7:15 pm

Hopefully snow will not be an issue next week and we’ll be all set to go.  We appreciate the changes and adjustments you have to make to join us and we certainly understand that this may not work for all families.

The children have worked hard to research and understand accurately.  They have made some efforts to group information and think more about paragraphing.  Most of the children are making an extra effort to proofread and ask others to double check for them before they print for presentation.

Here is a sneak preview of what you’ll be seeing.  The class is excited about what they will be able to teach you as you tour the Big Bang of Space Inquiry museum next week.

Choices

S.E.L. – Coming to Know Yourself Well and Truthfully

We continued our conversation about choices this week.  We considered what we share publicly and what we know to be true in our hearts.  We related those choices to the effort codes on the report cards.  We began to think about the difference between knowing what could be done and what is done.  Our sign-in question asked how often children thought about neatness and accuracy when they were writing.  Most of the children indicated they always did.  I know that isn’t true – some of the children always think about it, but most of the children only think about it when they are reminded.

I shared my observations and asked them to consider the work in their folders and reconsider their choice.  Then we talked about the difference between knowing what you intend to do and what is real. We talked about the importance of being honest with yourself.   We used the fable, The Belling of the Cat, to help illustrate this difference.  Sometimes it is easier to talk about things than to do them.   Talking, however, doesn’t provide a solution; only action does.  We’ll see what actions our class takes in working to learn and improve.

Bits and Pieces – thing you might want to talk to your child about

  • We began Gooseberry Park this week.  It is a story about friendship and struggles with an interesting twist.  Ask your child about it.
  • We have continued to work with fractions.  We are learning how to use the numerator and denominator to guide our thinking.  We’ve been exploring fractions by thinking of how brownies could be shared and we’ve been exploring fractions by talking about reading half a book, or a fourth/quarter of a book.  It is different thinking and is stretching what we know.
  •  We have also continued our work in discovering how to be more aware of your inner voice as you read.  How do you keep track of it?  When is it helpful and when is it distracting?  How can you keep track of the thinking you are doing and how can you make it matter?  “I was thinking while I was reading.  I had these questions and made these predictions.  Now what am I going to do?”
  • We have a challenge with Mr. Caron on Tuesday, March 26.  We should be ready to be outside.  We never can tell.
  • Big Bang of Space Inquiry Museum – Thursday, March 28 from 6:15 to 7:15 pm
  • Unnamed As of Yet Museum to share independent research work on Tuesday, April 30
  • Thank you to Rachel Robie for helping us create our Space Adventure based on George’s Secret Key to the Universe.  It’s fun to think about where we’d go if we could use Cosmos to blast off into space.

 

Our Week – March 15

Mrs. Eaves Weekly Newsletters

Thank you Mark Cavalier, Alison Duffy, Carolyn Kelly and Chris Robie for joining us yesterday for our field trip to the planetarium.  We had a wonderful time.  The children thought seeing the rocket, jet, and many space devices, and being in the planetarium was exciting. The children who learned even more about their research topics were excited that much more.

The children know a great deal about space.  When we came back to school and the jotted down the things they wanted to remember many of them noted that they got to see things in a way that helped them to understand better.  Other loved the opportunity to try to land the space shuttle of the lunar module in the video simulation.  The children also had fun with the treasure exhibit- searching for treasure, panning for gold and understanding a bit more about the discoveries that are waiting to be made.

 

 

The Big Bang of Space Inquiry Museum

Tuesday – March 19 – 6:15 to 7:15

 We hope you all received an invitation to our museum about space.  This week has been about writing and creating and putting the displays together.  It is interesting to see how the children work and how they are preparing to share what they know with you.  The diversity among their approaches is mind-boggling.  Some are very careful about proofreading, others not at all.  Some really need to anchor their work around pictures and visuals, while others are all about writing up their research and getting their words just so.  Some get caught up in the technology – taking screen shots, selecting images, preparing brochures, while others are glad to design and draw.  I am sure you will learn a great deal from our night.

 

Focusing on Fractions

We have continued our work with fractions and are learning how what we know about multiplication can help us discover amounts when they need to be partitioned off into equal groups.  All of a sudden we are noticing “fair shares” everywhere – when we are dividing out model magic for a project or when we are cutting cardboard apart to make parts of the solar system.

Bits and Pieces –

  • Growing for the Greenhouse – At the beginning of the month we began some marigold seeds as part of a project to gain attention for the greenhouse that the school is hoping to build this summer.  The children began over 200 seedlings that we shared with voters on Tuesday.  Thanks to them for that great work.
  • Greenhouse Fund Raiser – on the night of our Big Bang Museum when you  buy pizza at Flatbread in Hampton between 5 and 9pm some of the money will go toward the greenhouse fund.
  • Fables and Choices – We have continued our conversation about choices.  This week we read a fable called The Children and the Frogs.  It helped us consider the unintended consequences of our choices.  We realized that it can be important to really look at what is happening.

Our Week – March 8

Mrs. Eaves Weekly Newsletters

Congratulations to all the talented children in our school, and especially in our class who braved the crowd and performed for us last night in the Talent Show.  What a wonderful night of song, dance and music.  It was fun.  You obviously practiced long and hard to give a great performance.  Perhaps you’ll become the next Garry Krinsky – what do you think?  Maybe at the next talent show we’ll see juggling….balancing feathers…how about a ladder on your chin?

Thank you to P.A.L. for bringing Toying with Science to our school.  The children thoroughly enjoyed the presentation. Our class was amazed by all they saw.   They loved the show.  They also appreciated knowing how much planning, time and practice was behind each amazing act.

The Choices We Make

SEL – Self-Awareness

This week we began a conversation centered on choices.  At first the class didn’t fully realize how many choices they make in a day…in an hour…in a minute.  Until you begin to think about choices, it often feels as though you do what you have to do waiting for that one time when you can do whatever you want.  But we’ve discovered there is more to choice than that.

We began our conversation with Dust of Snow by Robert Frost.  After learning that rued meant to “regret and feel badly about” our discussion began.  It was easy to know really good and bad choices.  But what about the little ones or the ones we don’t really consider.  We discussed choices that aren’t horrible but might not be so good.  That led us to consider how those choice could become bad or even horrible over time if they add up.

One example Joe used was choosing a math problem that wasn’t really a challenge.  You might do a problem once because the steps for solving it weren’t clear at the beginning.  But once you knew it would be easy to solve, choosing that kind again would not be good for you AND it could also not be good for others because the problem the needed would not be there as a choice.

This conversation is also leading us to learn about metaphorical thinking.  We realized that “You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water” meant more than being at the ocean.  Those thoughts connected us back to our learning goal work when we discovered that a goal remained a wish until we made an action plan.  We realized we aren’t all going to know our math facts if we don’t actually work to know them – and work hard at it.

The final piece of our choice conversation this week was centered on the fable, The North Wind and the Sun.  (You can click on the title for one version of the fable.) The class discovered that competing and feeling the need to be better than others often makes you angry and frustrated.  The moral that force and anger don’t work as well as kindness and being “in your happy place” made sense to our class.  Garrett connected that back to the Habits for Success by pointing out that the Sun was able to do what the wind could not because he was confident, in control, content, and behaving so its true zest showed through.  It is great when one learning conversation connects to another in a chain of learning.

Becoming Proficient – with Multiplication facts

            We talked about what it means to be proficient with regard to multiplication facts.  Gabby helped us understand the meaning of proficient by pointing out that we could think of it as working efficiently and like a pro.  You’d be really good at it and do it easily.  Our goal is to be able to do 70 fact problems in six minutes or less with 98% accuracy – several times in a row.

This week we took the first timed test.  The student scores ranged from 13 to 58 accurate problems.  They developed plans for practicing both at school and at home.  At first we hoped we all meet our goal by the end of March, but are now thinking it would be more reasonable to set April vacation as our target date.  When we talk about it in class the children are very earnest in their commitment to doing this work.  I know that that there’s nothing glamorous about memorizing math facts so it often gets set aside.  Any help you could give with that would be greatly appreciated.  Salute, Multiplication War and Tiguous are three games the children have that support repeated practice of facts.  Math Bingo is a fun app if you have that option and of course there are the games activities on the eboard too.

Calvin made the suggestion that we begin a LYM Club (Learn Your Multiplication) one day after school.  I’m all for that.  I was hoping to ask the class what day might work best today (but no school) so please look for that notice on Monday.

We’ve also been working on recording our thinking and understanding with reading – what does it mean to respond deeply to our reading.  We have continued research and learning about topic sentences and paragraphing.  We are exploring fractions and equivalence.  We are learning what fair shares are all about.

Bits and Pieces –

  • We’ll be having a challenge with Mr. Caron on Tuesday – we should be ready to be outside just in case.
  • Field Trip to the Shepard-McAuliffe Discovery Center – We will be going to the planetarium on Thursday, March 14.  Thank you for being available to chaperone – I have left those slips at school and was planning to confirm with you today.  Please be on the look out for an email, or call over the weekend.
  • Report Cards will be sent to you on Friday, March 15.
  • 3E Museum Night – we’d like to invite you to our second museum of the year, one that shares all we have been learning about space.  We hope you’ll be able to attend our museum on Tuesday, March 19 from 6:15 to 7:15 pm.

Enjoy your weekend!