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Thursday, August 13, 2015
Saturday, May 23, 2015
Cursive

Friday, May 1, 2015
Electricity and Magnetism
Students in the oldest group have been learning about electricity and magnetism this winter and spring. We started off reviewing what static electricity is and enjoyed doing some experiments with our charged balloons that would make each others hair stand on end! As we moved on to other forms of electricity as well as magnetism, we really focused on the field aspect of these "unseen" phenomenons. To help us understand and visualize this field, we created our own compass using very strong bar magnets, a dish of water, a cork and a needle. It was so exciting to see our compass point north and then be able to interrupt the Earth's magnetic field with a small magnet. We were further excited about this experiment when a character in a book we were reading did the same thing! As we delved deeper into this topic, we did experiments with electric fields interrupting a compass, we made an electromagnet and created an example of alternating current. All of these experiments have come in handy as we read the book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, and learn about a young Malawian boy who builds his own windmill from scrap parts and brings electricity into his house and village.
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Thirteen Colonies and American Revolution

Sunday, April 19, 2015
Electricity and Magnetism
Before reviewing how electrical currents work, children
were asked to share what they already knew. Some wrote, “Electricity makes
things go.” Another wrote “You need batteries. You need magnets and you need
wires.” We studied a modern light bulb, drawing what it looks like and we made
our own one. In our own light bulb we tested a variety of materials as
filaments to see which materials would glow and why! To answer the question,
How does the flow of electricity in a series circuit differ from the flow of
electricity in a parallel circuit we removed one bulb. Figuring out why the other two lights
remained on in a parallel circuit was a challenge.
The final part of this unit involved BOTH magnetism and
electricity. We made our own battery powered compass and finally created an
electromagnet.
Tuesday, April 14, 2015
Multiplication
Fractions
In January children in grades 2 and 3 started a unit exploring
Fractions. First we made our own Fraction Kits, by cutting strips of paper into
halves, quarters, eighths, sixteenths. Then we made thirds, sixths and
twelfths. Then we were ready to play games using our kits. We added fractions,
subtracted fractions, compared fractions and discovered many equivalent
fractions. We also explored different ways to make a whole and using parquetry
pieces created designs showing many creative designs for “One half yellow.” In
our Fractions are Fun packet we practiced these skills and also worked
on finding a fraction of a number of objects as we colored ¾ of 16 objects
blue. Some of us even began to add and subtract fractions with like
denominators.
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