Planetarium

It was a fantastic trip to EMU's new planetarium.  The children were very excited to see the night sky above them and recognize the constellations we have been discussing in class.  

  

Entering the planetarium

After viewing the night sky, we walked across the courtyard to Sherzer Hall.  At Sherzer, we climbed 3 flights of stairs to view the telescope Thomas Edison used.  

Thomas Edison's telescope

Sun dial on rooftop

Then there were more stairs to get to the roof.   
During the day you can see for miles.  

Observatory

At night, telescopes are set up on the roof top and people can observe the night sky. 
But, if you really want an up close look at Space, you can go in the Observatory and look through the mega telescope.  Too bad it was still day light.

 Telescope in Observatory

Thank you Christine Hume, Juna's mom, for setting up this trip for all the 1st and 2nd graders.  It was amazing.

Measuring

In Math, the children have been very interested in measuring the room.  When there is a choice of math activities, they often choose to measure the length of the room using different types of blocks.  Last week, we used more traditional measuring devices: rulers, meter sticks, and tape measures.  We also expanded from just measuring the room to measuring ourselves.  The class is learning the difference between the inches/feet side of measuring tool and the mm/cm/meter side.  It is hard to use the same side consistent but with practice it will become easier.

Writing

 Each week the children have various writing assignments.  There are many ways that the ideas for the writing assignments are generated: monthly themes, books we've read, discussions, and brainstorming. 


While we were studying Tools, we read a story by Chris Monroe,  Monkey with a Tool Belt.   In the story, the monkey uses a variety of very inventive tool such as a "twizzler" and "de-twizzler".   The monkey hears a strange noise in his house.  He guesses what could be making the noise.  One thought was, maybe "a family of very loud squirrels moved in".  I told the class to remind me later to tell them about a story about a squirrel family in the house.


That day's writing project was going to be, to invent a tool, and write a story about it.  Just as we were about to start, one of the children reminded me to tell my squirrel story.  After my story hands flew up around the room.  Many children had their own story about animals in their houses.  Thus, there became a choice of topics for writing, either a tool story or an animal in the house story.  

At writing time, children often get writers block.  We have been working on things you can do when this happens.  We discussed how  stories have characters and usually have some type of problem or conflict to keep the readers interested. One day we thought about how to create a character.  Together we had a brainstorming session.  Niko picked the name for the character and the rest of class told something about the character.  One child noticed that some of the ideas of the character could lead to problems in the story.  For example, his house didn't have a bathroom so this might mean the character needed to look for a new house.  After brainstorming together, each child tried to think of ideas for a character.  Andrés asked if he could make his list into a "wanted poster".  Creativity abounds.

Last Monday, the assignment was to create a planet.  The children could work by themselves or with a partner.  Three questions needed to be answered: what is the name of the planet, what does it look like, and what lives on the planet?  After ideas were formulated, they presented their planet ideas to the class.

Explosions

Did you know you can check the forecasts of the Aurora Borealis, just like you check the weather forecast?  Click on this link,   Aurora Forecasts .  

Varvara helps her mother
explain solar wind.

This is just one of the many things we learned from Varvara's mom, Natalia. Natalia works at the Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Science Department at the University of Michigan.

She did an amazing job of explaining solar winds and how the Aurora Borealis is produced, in terms everyone could understand.

In the afternoon, we watched a DVD: Cosmic Collisions.  Many of the images in the film come from the U-M Space Science Department.

Thank you Natalia for a fascinating talk and donating the movie to SK.

From another world

Daniel Pinkwater is a quirky writer whose imagination is boundless.  He is a prolific writer of children's books and one of my favorite authors. This week the children heard three books by Mr. Pinkwater about space.  

 The children seem to really enjoy the stories.  They thought it was hilarious that aliens collected potato pancakes and drank root beer floats.  They loved that the parents never believed the children when they stated they had been in space.  The more the books we read, the more commonalities the children found in the stories.  


We are starting to think about writing our own stories about space.

The stars aline

When Mrs. Carpenter and I sat down to discuss our ideas for the April theme: Space, we discovered the stars were aligned.  We were both thinking that studying the stars would be a great focus of study.  "The Stars" provides a wealth of opportunities for projects across subject areas.  With both classes concentrating on the same aspect of the Universe, we anticipate some interesting cross over between the classes.  One of the highlights of the month is a trip to a planetarium on Friday, April 27.

On Monday, my math class explored making stars with various numbers of points.  The preliminary question was: who knows how to make a star.  There were many variations.  We counted the points on each child's star.  There were 4, 5, and 6 pointed stars.  Next, the question was posed: try making a star with 7, 8,...points.  The children experimented.  Later in the week, we watched this YouTube clip about making stars.  The children were inspired to try making more stars.  Several children traced geometric shapes to create stars with more points.  One child pointed out if you used a triangle, 3 times you would get 9 point and 4 times you would get 12 because 3x4=12.  (Another "aha" moment, in math class.)

In homeroom this week we talked about the sun.  
Each child told one thing they knew about the sun, and we compared it to a list of top 10 sun facts from NASA. Three of the things on our list match the 10 facts from NASA.


During the month, we will be focusing on stories and tales about the sun and stars.  We started with 2 myths about the sun: Arrow to the Sun a Pueblo myth which explains how the spirit of the Lord of the Sun was brought to the world of men, and a Maori tale in which the trickster, Maui, slows down the movement of the sun.  

Framing tools

Friday morning stated with one child asking to share a riddle.  This opened the flood gate to a riddle-go-round.  Each child got to tell one riddle.  One turned out to be a perfect opening to the morning field trip. (As you can tell, planning is everything in teaching.)
Framing riddle:
Q: Why did the picture have to go to jail?
A: Because it was framed!


After a snack, we all got on the bus and headed up Washtenaw Ave. to the Frame Factory.
Viola's mom, Jenn, and brother Simon were there to greet us.  Jenn introduced us to Phyllis and Kathryn, and the tour began.

  
Tools abound in a frame shop.  
Here are a few of the highlights.
-There was a tool for cutting the wood and metal strips into the right sizes to build a frame.
-A round disc for smoothing rough edges.
-A computer and large cutting machine that cuts mats to the right specifications.  
(Each child received a mat with a circular or heart shaped opening to take back to school.)
-Another tool scores glass so it can be broken into the right size to fit the frame.
Thank you Phyllis and Kathryn for sharing your framing knowledge with us and to Jenn for setting up the field trip.

 Back at school the children made a drawing to put in their mats.  Some are currently on display in our classroom.

Tools of the trade

Tom (Dominic's dad) is an engineer.  He came in this week to showed us some of the tools he uses in his work.

There were so many interesting devices he uses to check cars.

The children got to try them all.  One gadget tested humidity.  Each child blew on it to see how much humidity was in their breath.  

The highlight was when Tom showed us the small microscope he uses.  It was no ordinary microscope.  It not only enlarges an item but it takes a picture of it and puts it on Tom's computer so he can study it later.  

Tom used the microscope to take a picture of everyone's nail.  It was a bit scary to see the nails magnified to this degree.  No speck of dirt went undetected.  

Tom printed out the nail photos for us. The next day the class tried to determine whose nail was whose.  I was surprised how quickly they came to a consensus on the identifications.

Thank you Thomas for coming in and Jennifer (Dominic's mom), his trusty assistant,  who help shlep the gear and take photos.  We all had a great time.