Science Class

Wow I cannot believe the last time I wrote an update about classes was at the end of the 2nd week of school.  We are almost at the end of the partial now, and so much has been going on.

We have taken tests, gotten detentions, learned that some days science class is a lot of fun, and some days it is just writing vocabulary words and taking notes.

The great thing about elementary students is that even when they are in trouble they still hug you and kiss your cheek and say "I love you, Miss."

So let's start with the 6th grade when they finished their bread project.

They swiped their slices of bread in various locations of the school and every couple of days they would inspect their bread and write down what they saw.  Some kids didn't really see anything happen, but some were growing a new world on their bread!

They were using a Magnifying Glass to try and pick up the details 

of the organisms growing on their bread.

The winner of the grossest bread is Flavio's group.  

This bread wiped the soccer field, which turned out to be worse than the bathroom bread.

The hypothesis for some of the groups was that the bathroom would create the most organisms, so we learned that our hypothesis was not correct.

5th Grade

After 5th grade did a virtual lab on the computer we did a similar activity in class.   We were testing the best surface to bounce a ball....cement, grass, wood, or a towel.

They learned the best place to bounce a ball was on the cement.  They learned about conducting an experiment, and I learned about one of my students.  He cannot sit still for anything!  But when we did this activity he was the first one who "got it" when I was giving the instructions and he became the leader of the boys' group.  Super proud of Alex!

3rd Grade

Third grade is a challenge on many levels.  There are 14 little wiggling people.  They are cute as can be!  Some of them understand most of my English, and some of them don't, and I have one new student who rarely understands anything I say, but he has the sweetest smile that makes your heart melt!  They have all made improvements since the first day of classes, when I had a lot of blank stares!  Miss Elena comes to class with me also, so they get some explanations and instructions in both English and Spanish.

One day we did a virtual lab with the 3rd grade, and they were catching ants on various surfaces, demonstrating the use of camouflage as they learned about making a hypothesis, planning and conducting an investigation and recording their results.

It was a crazy 40 minutes!  But they had fun!

7th Grade

We have been doing some STEM (science - technology - engineering - math) Projects and team building projects this partial.  The kids have gotten pretty creative.

Here they were in teams and they were each given a bag of marshmallows, 5 feet of string, 5 straws and 10 toothpicks. The goal was to hold as many marshmallows as possible off the ground.  They had 2 minutes.

TIME IS UP !  COUNT YOUR MARSHMALLOWS!

Next they did a team building activity where they had string tied to a rubber band, and only using that to move the cups, they had to make a pyramid.   The two teams were racing to see who would complete the pyramid first.

I had to keep saying...."No Hands" "don't touch the cups!" 

Your automatic response is to grab whatever it is you are trying to manipulate, when it isn't going in the way you want it to go.  This was a lot of fun!

Our winning team!

More 7th grade!

We are going to be studying space in 2nd partial, so we did several projects involving space, planets, etc.

We did one project where the kids had to come up with a way to save the planet if there was a large asteroid that was going to hit earth.  Amazingly there are asteroids out there larger than the distance from here to Tegucigalpa....I was amazed!

We learned that NASA is actually working on a plan to deflect an asteroid, if there ever is one that size that is heading towards earth.

The kids had some interesting ideas....of course the boys just wanted to blow it up.   One of my students designed something to hit the asteroid and break it apart and then "vacuum" up all the pieces of rock to take back to NASA and study.

We also learned about comets, and the kids made a model of a comet.  I told them to try and use recycled materials, and things they could find at home, rather than going out and buying things.  Each group had completely different ideas, it was so fun to watch!

This group made paper machete and then painted it gray (the nucleus), and added glitter (coma), and made the tail with tissue paper.  They spent I think 40 lempiras (about 25 cents)

This group made their comet with a flashlight and clay and tissue paper.  All their supplies they found in their homes so they spent NO money!  The light shining out of the back of the comet was the tail, great idea!

These two boys....always my boys!  They spent the first day sitting and complaining that they didn't know what to do and they were looking up experiments on the internet.  We had a few moments of the testing of wills, but I told them to use their creativity, even though they assured me that they had none...and finally the final day to turn in the project they showed up with an idea.

The spray painted a plastic ball (nucleus), they wrapped some crumpled tissue paper around it (coma), and then they cut a hole in it.....this is where the tail would come from.

Keep in mind these are two 7th grade boys! 

I was just happy they started to use their minds and creativity!

Their plan was to pour a package of baking soda inside the ball, then two small pepsi's, shake and there would be a foaming explosion out of the hole and that would be the tail of the comet.

It didn't work, but we all had a fun time watching them try to make it work.

And they got great points for creativity!  

They spent so much money!  They bought spray paint, and baking soda, and tissue paper, and pepsi's....but they won for the most creative concept!

4th Grade

In one of their lessons we were learning about models.  So we made some 3-dimensional models of our classroom.  The kids were so creative!  They didn't want the project to end, they kept coming up with more and more ideas!

The girls were including the decorations I have on the walls.

Here you can see the air conditioner and Mr. Christian's filing cabinet.

Daniel made the white board. 

Here is a picture of my whiteboard (along with Mr. Christian's computer class drawings)...but you see he put everything I have on the whiteboardj "big idea" and he included my "raise your hand" sign and even Mr. Happy. They all love Mr. Happy!

When the boys were done, they had the computers in the center, and the projector hanging from the ceiling.  They had included so many little details!

Engineering!

Then we had a unit on engineering.  We learned about the steps of the design process, planning and building a prototype and testing your prototype.

So we were making something that would protect an egg when dropped from 1 meter.

They had a blast!

German is so happy that his egg survived the 1 meter drop!

He is showing me his egg, they drew Mr. Happy on their egg.  

Not only did Mr. Happy survive a 1 meter drop, he also survived a 2 meter drop! 

 Way to go German and Daniel!

Jesus and Jennifer had the idea to make a parachute attached to their protective case for the egg.

Jennifer is ready for the 1 meter drop!

And the egg survived!

All the students' eggs survived the 1 meter drop, and these two groups also survived the 2 meter drop.

I had one set of partners who had difficulty working together, and did not make anything....you can pray for my 4th grade girls.  We seem to always have a few of them who cannot get along.  Girls!

After vacation we will have 2 short weeks left of this partial.  That means I am almost 1/4 of the way through the school year.  It is a lot of work, A LOT!  But it is also a lot of fun!  And when one of the kids finally "gets it" or they are excited about learning, or they start asking questions.....it is all worth it!