Follow us on Twitter!!!

@WallisKids1

This is a protected account so you will need to be approved. Please email me directly if you are not approved.  This is a great way to see what your child is doing at school and for us to collaborate globally!  Happy tweeting!

Today we took FLIGHT

           

Today we took FLIGHT with our adopted pilot, Captain Daigle. He will be coming for the next few weeks to help us discover more geography, science, and math as well as life skills that we will need to "shoot for the moon!"  Today, we discussed characteristics that will help us reach our goals. 

F - Fearlessness 

L - Leadership

I - Imagination

G-  Gratitude 

H - Honesty

T - Tenacity

Mass, Volume, and Density OH MY!

Everything is made of matter and has a mass. If everything has a mass it has a volume. In today's lab students used these physical properties and began to explore density. Using brown sugar, students experimented with how and if density affected mass and volume.  We were able to dispel several "myths" students had. For example, simply because an object takes up a small amount of space does not mean the mass is also small. Likewise, if an object takes up a large amount of space it may not have a large mass. It depends on the density.....which depends on the mass....which depends on the volume. OH MY!!!

In the course of human events...

                 

"We hold these truth to be self evident...that all men are created equal and have certain unalienable rights among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. " 

It's an exciting week to uncover and investigate the brave and bold words of Thomas Jefferson and The Declaration of Independence. Students took the chance to read and retell this monumental document in their own words. This has been a great way for them to comprehend and remember our history!

When you see a change, how do you determine whether its physical or chemical?

              

We have spent the last few weeks discovery properties of matter and the phases that matter can go through.  Our research and observations led us to one question, "When something changes, how do we know if the change is chemical or physical?" Using household chemicals, we went to the STEAM Lab to do some further investigating.  Students made several mixtures and observed them for things pieces of evidence like a gas being produced, color change, light being produced or temperature change.  Students measured a temperature change using digital thermometers that graphed their results.  The conclusion: if a temperature change occurs, it is likely to be a chemical change.  

Keep Calm and Experiment On

Today we began science by exploring different scientific tools and their purposes.  We discussed as a class why it would be important to know how to use and which tools to use BEFORE actually doing an experiment.  This led to good discussions about science safety, procedures, and even valid data collection.  Most of all we decided that in order to answer questions we would have to 

KEEP CALM & EXPERIMENT ON!

Very Hungry Caterpillar

We have a very hungry visitor in our garden and we are hoping that he will stay!  Caterpillars love to munch on leaves.  In order for them to have leaves, we have to have healthy soil.  Did you know that to have healthy soil you may need to have potassium, nitrogen and phosphate?  Our soil needed a little bit of all of it so we create a mixture and added it to our gardens.  We are hoping this will make the soil "ideal" for growing all sort of yummy vegetables.  In order to track the progress, we started data collection and will check the height, temperature, and soil fertility every week.