Wednesday, February 29, 2012

My Planet is Unique!

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Happy Leap Day! Today we worked really hard on our planet reports! We are researching what number our planet is from the sun, how many years it takes for our planet to travel around the sun, how many moons and rings our planet has, what the temperature of our planet is, how far away our planet is from the sun, how many hours it takes for the planet to rotate, and any other interesting facts about our planet! The groups also began illustrating their planet to present to the class.

This afternoon we ran through our Space School Musical with both classes from top to finish. Kids are to keep practicing their lines and actions at home! J We can’t wait for you to see our performance! You will learn all about planets, asteroids, comets, and moons!

Postcards from Pluto

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

This morning we began reading Postcards From Pluto A Tour of the Solar System by Loreen Leedy. We enjoyed learning facts about all the planets. This story will help us to write our planet reports! This morning we also had time to work on our Space Musical. Our musical will take place on Friday, March 9th at 1:15 p.m. All parents/guardians are invited to come watch!

This afternoon we began researching our planets. We were broken into 8 groups of 4-5 kids. We are learning how our planet is unique from each of the other planets.

Eggstronaut Drop!!!







Monday, February 27, 2012

This morning we had our Eggstronaut Drop! We dropped our eggs from the second story stairwell. We counted down 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, BLASTOFF!!! for each egg we dropped. After all the eggs were dropped, the kids picked up their egg capsules. We then sat on a tarp in our pod to find out if the astronauts had survived.

Here are pictures from our drop!

Here are pictures of the surviving astronauts!

Here are the astronauts who didn’t survive!


We held this astronaut drop so kids can see what important jobs engineers have in designing space capsules to keep our astronauts safe in their travels in space. After our egg drop we discussed why some astronauts survived and why other astronauts did not survive. These are some of the changes the kids will make for next time: Jacob R will put a more protective surface over the sponge so that the egg will stay safe even if other capsules fall on it. Maria would add a parachute to her space capsule so it has a better landing. Maddy, Josie, and Braeden suggested putting more padding such as tissue paper or bubblewrap inside their capsules.
Austin thinks his eggstronaut survived because he placed his egg in two different containers which gave it two layers of protection. Charlie used paper towels, shredded paper, a container, and a parachute to provide a safe landing for his eggstronaut. Aleah squeezed her egg into a paper towel roll. She wrapped her paper towel roll in layers of feathers and then put it in a strawberry container. She thinks her eggstronaut survived because it had a lot of soft padding for protection.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Astronaut Explorations!

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Countdown to Astronaut Egg Drop Day: ONE DAY!!!

This morning we read books all about astronauts. We then each began writing a story called “If I were an Astronaut…”

This afternoon we learned all about astronauts and NASA. NASA is a part of the United States government and stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We discussed the many different uniforms worn by astronauts and how the uniforms have greatly improved over time. We then watched several videos to learn more about the daily lives of astronauts living in space! Here is a video about astronauts in free fall:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoQDPW_AACE&feature=related
Here are videos describing astronaut food, exercise, and how to brush your teeth and sleep in space!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb8fKWBAUCM&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brMKdXJN_fE&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPzFwjTTG3g&feature=relmfu

One of our favorite movies was watching the astronauts play with water:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTqLQO3L4Ko&feature=endscreen&NR=1

After viewing these video clips, we decided what we would like to do in zero gravity if we had the chance! Charlie would like to try somersaulting in the air. Claire S would like to try the different canned foods the astronauts eat. Aleah would like to float around in the space shuttle. Emmitt would like to try spinning around. Taylor would like to try sleeping straight up in a sleeping bag. Jacob R would like to try exercising in space. Joe would want to try making a PB & J sandwich in space without letting the bread fly away! Riann and Gage would like to have a water balloon fight, but would catch the water before it floats into any equipment. Andrea would want to try gymnastics in the air and would like to try making an egg burrito. Olivare would like to somersault and then try squirting ketchup onto a corndog. Joslynn would like to try catching water in the space shuttle. Hunter would like to try jumping jacks and pushups in the space shuttle. Jack would want to try eating jello from in the air. Freddy would want to try to make a burrito after flipping in the air.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Classroom Constellations







Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012

This morning we completed our stargazers. We can see many constellations by tilting our stargazers toward the light! Check us out!
This afternoon we learned all about stars and constellations in the night sky. We learned that stars are actually balls of hot gas. The Sun is the closest star we can see on our planet Earth. There are trillions of stars in the universe. Stars can be all different colors.
The color the star is depends on its temperature. Blue stars are the hottest, yellow stars are medium, and red stars are the coldest. These stars gather in groups called clusters. To show what we learned, we wrote facts on star cut outs. Aleah, Riann, and Hunter learned that the blue stars are hotter than red stars. Nick learned that back in the day, people used stars as maps. Jacob R learned stars are not all the same temperature. Lily learned that stars are made of hot gas. Josylnn and Maria learned that the red star is the coolest. Kylie & Andrea learned that the white star is the second hottest star. Joe learned the sun is our star.


We can pick out a single star in the night sky by recognizing constellations. Constellations are pictures created by stars in the night sky. As a class, we created 7 constellations to hang on our classroom ceiling – our night sky. We created Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Leo, Cygnus, Hercules, Orion, and Cassiopeia. Below are pictures of us creating our constellations!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Constellation Stargazers!

Tuesday, February 21st, 2012

Today our class began our Space Musical. It is a neat spin off of a Reader’s Theatre production. We will not give away the exciting details of our production just yet but will let you know when we will be putting on our performance!

This afternoon we created our own constellation viewers! We first read the book Stargazers by Gail Gibbons to learn what constellations are all about! We then cut out mini pictures of constellations. We poked our pens through each of the stars of the constellation pictures to let light shine through. We inserted these pictures on the lid of a Pringles can. After Mr. Schwab poked a hole in the bottom of our Pringle cans, our stargazers were complete! Below are pictures
of our class creating stargazers!


















"Night of the Stars"

Monday, February 20th

Today our class began reading “The Night of the Stars” by Douglas Gutierrez. This book was about a man who didn’t like the night because when night comes, the light goes away and the colors disappear. The man decided to do something to keep the colors! One night, he walked up to the highest point on the mountain. The man stood on his tiptoes and with his finger poked a hole in the night sky. Light flickered out through the hole. The man poked holes all over the sky and punched a large hole in the sky to create a huge round light. This is how he created the stars and moons!

We then worked with our partner to create an imaginary way that we would create the stars and moon in the night sky. Brooke and Hunter would climb to the top of the highest mountain and use a magic pencil to poke holes in the sky to create the stars and moon. Jacob B and Gabby would jump out of a plane and poke holes in the sky as they flew. They would then have light to watch movies at night.