Map-it on Ipads

What on earth?!  Alan (Ben and Greer’s dad) taught us how to use the ipads he brought in, to make our mark in mapmaking.  Now we know how to find the school, and our own house, spreading the image to even ‘drive’ the route home.  We went outside to take pictures with the ipads, of locations and images we want on our map of the area around The New School.  An exciting afternoon--and more to come.  We will be working with other groups over the next few weeks. 

Electricity!

The second graders have started to explore electricity this spring in their science class.  As a start to this unit, we have been exploring static electricity using plastic wrap and paper towels.  We've discussed, explored and read about positive and negative charges atracting and the students have had a blast!  What we enjoyed watching the most was salt particles practically "flying" up to meet the charged plastic wrap.  We had to check that one out a few times.  Sticking balloons to walls and friends has also been fun.  Or latest experiements include trying to charge balloons with different products - such as nylon, paper towels and plastic wrap.  Then we put the balloons near each other to see what happens.  There is a lot of sparks flying in this class lately.