4-13-15

On the Verge of Time

 We continued to try and build our time keeping structures.  Many of our groups came very close to having their structure keep time and a few had theirs keep time for a short period of time.  The following pictures are many of the final products.

We will not be meeting on 4/20/15!  We will see you again on 4/27/15!

3-30-15

On the Verge of Time

 Today we had the students research various"clocks" used throughout history.  We discussed how each worked and what they were used for.  We then showed them some video of a more modern working timepiece.  The students then had to try and develop a working timepiece with the set of Knex that they were given to work with.  The students started the development of their timepiece but still had lots of work to do when time was up.  Therefore, they will be continuing their work this week.  This week will involve more trial and error and will require them to apply their engineering skills!

 Here are several pictures of the work that has been done so far.

3-16-15 & 3-23-15

Rags to Paper

 

 Today we made paper from cotton pulp!  We took the paper through a process of getting wet and using a screen and frame to help press the fibers together.  We made two types of paper, one with just water and one with water and cornstarch.
We then let them dry for a week.  Below are several pictures from the paper making process.

A week later after it all dried we made observations and analyzed it under a microscope.  Several pictures show the students using the microscopes and analyzing their paper.

3-2-15 & 3-4-15

Butter and Cheese

Today we made butter.  It seemed to be a huge success.  The kids were given the opportunity to taste the butter they made!  I believe almost all of the students tried their butter and it seemed as though they enjoyed it.  We had to tell them to be sure and not eat it all so they had some to test later =)  The following pictures show some of the process and products made at various points in the experiment.  

 We then meet again on Wednesday and attempted to make cheese.  I say attempted because, unfortunately, our experiment did not turn out.  However, we feel that this was still a valuable learning experience for the students.  We discussed what we could learn from this with them and what we felt went wrong in the experiment.   We also discussed why details are very important to follow in an experiment.  Although, they were disappointed with the outcome the students had a good time during the process.

2-23-15

Marco Polo

 Today we played a game that helped the students to become more familiar with what Marco Polo experienced as he traveled the Silk Road.  The students practiced their math skills at each town they stopped at along the way.  They had the opportunity to buy things at each stop and had to do the currency exchanges.  The game had a similar format as Monopoly.  The students also had to pay for their travels and make choices on how to travel.  There were chance cards that often affected their choices and their budgets.

Added Meeting Date

Added Meeting Date

Soon we will be doing two activities which entail making butter and cheese.  These activities use many of the same materials and materials with somewhat short shelf lives.  With this in mind and since we do not want the snow days to affect how much we get done in this unit, Mrs. Blust and I would like to add a meeting date in March.    The date we will be meeting in order to make the cheese is March 4th, from 3 pm until 4:30 pm.    We will still meet on March 2nd at the normal time!!!

2-9-15

You Reap What You Sow

On the 9th we finished the activity that we had previously started.  This time we focused on the math portion of the activity dealing with crops and farming.  We also continued the game to help show us that there is a lot of things that are left to chance when farming.  Some of these things we encountered and discussed were pests and weather.  We filled out several charts that lead us to discover how much profit we would have made given our decisions and chance.

 

 These pictures show the charts we filled out.  Finally with our profit we then used a pie graph to see how it was spent amongst the farm and family.  The students were surprised to see how things can affect the crops and the profits.  They were also surprised to see the percentages of the profit that went to various needed items.

PLEASE NOTE

** Feb. 23rd meeting will be letting out at 

                                   4:20 pm!!!!