Here's a grade-by-grade overview of the cool science, technology, and engineering topics being explored at our school!
Springing Forward!
It was a busy trimester at the Ayers School! Students worked diligently to apply lots of science knowledge to engineering projects. Thank you to all second and fourth grade families who attended the newly-added Take a Look Tuesday after-school sessions. It has been a pleasure getting to know you, and I hope that these sessions have been fun and informative. Once science-fair extra help sessions have concluded, additional Take a Look Tuesday dates will be added to the calendar. A big thanks to Cell Signaling in Beverly for granting Ayers the funds needed to purchase Lego Robotics We-Do 2.0. Second graders were the first ones to delve into designing, building, and programming with these new Legos. Students were tasked with building a rover that would traverse the surface of Mars exploring for signs of life. This lead to a discussion about how scientists use technology to assist them with their research. It was interesting and exciting! Stay tuned for more Lego We Do updates!
Take a look at what your wonderful children have been doing:)
Springing Forward!
It was a busy trimester at the Ayers School! Students worked diligently to apply lots of science knowledge to engineering projects. Thank you to all second and fourth grade families who attended the newly-added Take a Look Tuesday after-school sessions. It has been a pleasure getting to know you, and I hope that these sessions have been fun and informative. Once science-fair extra help sessions have concluded, additional Take a Look Tuesday dates will be added to the calendar. A big thanks to Cell Signaling in Beverly for granting Ayers the funds needed to purchase Lego Robotics We-Do 2.0. Second graders were the first ones to delve into designing, building, and programming with these new Legos. Students were tasked with building a rover that would traverse the surface of Mars exploring for signs of life. This lead to a discussion about how scientists use technology to assist them with their research. It was interesting and exciting! Stay tuned for more Lego We Do updates!
Take a look at what your wonderful children have been doing:)
Kindergarten
Our little learners continue to have a great time in STEAM class. We wrapped up our study of living and non-living things and have moved on to studying force and motion. We've been pushing and pulling all over the classroom. Students also conducted an investigation using magnets so that they could feel the push and pull associated with what we might refer to as "attract" and "repel". Ask your child to explain the difference between a push and a pull. Engage him/her in conversations about objects that can be pushed or pulled. Students will also design and construct parachutes to further their understanding of how pushes and pulls affect the motion of objects.
First Grade
First graders just completed a unit of study in STEAM which answered the essential question: "How do animals use their parts and senses?" We read about various animals, took some notes on how they use their parts to aid in their survival, then created some fantastic animals based on how we wanted those parts to be used! For example, you might see a Porcuvampiservalpus come home. What is that? Well, it's a porcupine that uses its quills for protection, a vampire bat that uses its teeth to puncture small holes in its pretty, a serval that uses her ear markings to help her young, and a platypus that uses its feet to swim and also to fight off enemies. Whoa!!!!
Ask your child what he/she learned about how animals use their parts. We also completed an investigation on how animals camouflage themselves, so ask them about how an animal uses camouflage to stay safe.
We are currently investigating sound and light. Here's what we'll do:
Second Grade
Second graders are studying matter and its interactions. Specifically, we are describing and classifying different kinds of materials by observable properties of color, flexibility, hardness, texture, and absorbency. Your student should have brought home a very interesting-looking hat! That hat was an engineering-design solution to solve the problem: If you were stuck on a deserted island, and all you had was a paper towel, some aluminum foil, a paper plate and a brown paper bag, how would you design a hat based on the properties of your materials? The kids did a great job. They were able to describe the aluminum foil as reflective and waterproof, the paper towel as absorbent, the paper plate as stiff and the brown paper bag as flexible. Students were able to arrive at these conclusions after conducting a series of tests on each of the materials.
Next, students tested the insulating properties of materials and explored the terms "insulating" and "conducting". They were asked to pick up cold water bottles and water bottles containing water that was quite warm. On their hands were styrofoam cups, socks and pieces of tinfoil shaped into oven mitts. They were able to come to the conclusion that styrofoam was the most insulating, socks were mediocre and tinfoil was a horrible insulator. Ask your student if it's possible to cook an egg on the sidewalk on a hot day! And, if it is, how would they pick it up. I'm sure they'll be able to provide you with clever answers. We'll continue our study of properties by changing materials through the use of heating and cooling to highlight reversible and irreversible change.
Third Grade
While magnets may not be magic, they sure are fun to tinker with! Third graders did an awesome job investigating attract and repel. They used their newly-acquired knowledge to design and build solutions that showcased the interactions between magnets. Ask your child to tell you about his/her design solution. Some interesting solutions include a magnetic hand band that will secure your metal coffee cup by using the force of attract. Another solution was a magnetic door latch that is easily opened when your hands are full of groceries. There was also a solution that used magnetic Legos. All very creative ideas constructed by inquisitive students! Next up...friction. It's a hot topic:)
Fourth Grade
Electrical engineering is the name of the game in fourth grade at the moment, and we are having a blast! We've transferred energy in the form of light, heat and sound, studied insulators and conductors, series versus parallel circuits and much more. Students will use this newly-acquired knowledge to come up with an ultimate solution to a problem based on designing an alarm circuit. Ask your child what he/she has learned about circuits and what ideas he/she has for how an alarm circuit will work. Next up...we'll be designing an arcade based on the short film Caine's Arcade. It's going to be the highlight of our school year!
Fifth Grade
Mrs. Burns' class has just finished designing safe escape solutions for Jack. Who's Jack? Why, Jack in the Beanstalk, of course! This has been some of the most creative work your students have done in STEAM class this year. Kudos to them for being able to design effective solutions to getting Jack away from that nasty giant! Ask your child what his/her solution looks like and how it works.
Mrs. Mione's class finished their design solutions last month. Their solutions needed to help Rapunzel in some way. We saw solutions based on zip lines, elevators, pulleys and more. Ask your child how they helped Rapunzel!
Miss Orlando and Miss Elliott's classes having designed and built chairs and pulley systems respectively. I'm so proud of the way these students were able to plan their solutions and execute the designs. Miss Orlando's class is working on documenting their progress in Google Slides. Miss Elliott's class is finishing their pulley systems and will be moving onto Google Slides in the coming weeks.
Great news! Cell Signaling in Beverly has generously granted the Ayers School $1970 toward the purchase of Lego WeDo 2.0! These are robotic-based Legos that the kids will surely enjoy. We'll start using this new technology during the second trimester. Thank you, Cell Signaling!
Fall/Winter Update
Whole-School Investigation
During the first trimester, the whole school engaged in an investigation of sturdy shapes: Squares versus Triangles! Through in-depth exploration using straws and tape as well as K'Nex, students learned that while squares are great for building, they are weak at their vertices and need to be reinforced. They also learned that triangles are quite sturdy and can hold quite a bit of weight even when their vertices are being tested. Ask your children about sturdy shapes!
Our little learners continue to have a great time in STEAM class. We wrapped up our study of living and non-living things and have moved on to studying force and motion. We've been pushing and pulling all over the classroom. Students also conducted an investigation using magnets so that they could feel the push and pull associated with what we might refer to as "attract" and "repel". Ask your child to explain the difference between a push and a pull. Engage him/her in conversations about objects that can be pushed or pulled. Students will also design and construct parachutes to further their understanding of how pushes and pulls affect the motion of objects.
First Grade
First graders just completed a unit of study in STEAM which answered the essential question: "How do animals use their parts and senses?" We read about various animals, took some notes on how they use their parts to aid in their survival, then created some fantastic animals based on how we wanted those parts to be used! For example, you might see a Porcuvampiservalpus come home. What is that? Well, it's a porcupine that uses its quills for protection, a vampire bat that uses its teeth to puncture small holes in its pretty, a serval that uses her ear markings to help her young, and a platypus that uses its feet to swim and also to fight off enemies. Whoa!!!!
Ask your child what he/she learned about how animals use their parts. We also completed an investigation on how animals camouflage themselves, so ask them about how an animal uses camouflage to stay safe.
We are currently investigating sound and light. Here's what we'll do:
- Demonstrate that vibrating materials can make sound and that sound can make materials vibrate.
- Conduct an investigation to determine the effect of placing materials that allow light to pass through them, allow only some light through them, block all the light, or redirect light when put in the path of a beam of light.
- Design and build a device that uses sound to send a signal over a distance.
Second Grade
Second graders are studying matter and its interactions. Specifically, we are describing and classifying different kinds of materials by observable properties of color, flexibility, hardness, texture, and absorbency. Your student should have brought home a very interesting-looking hat! That hat was an engineering-design solution to solve the problem: If you were stuck on a deserted island, and all you had was a paper towel, some aluminum foil, a paper plate and a brown paper bag, how would you design a hat based on the properties of your materials? The kids did a great job. They were able to describe the aluminum foil as reflective and waterproof, the paper towel as absorbent, the paper plate as stiff and the brown paper bag as flexible. Students were able to arrive at these conclusions after conducting a series of tests on each of the materials.
Next, students tested the insulating properties of materials and explored the terms "insulating" and "conducting". They were asked to pick up cold water bottles and water bottles containing water that was quite warm. On their hands were styrofoam cups, socks and pieces of tinfoil shaped into oven mitts. They were able to come to the conclusion that styrofoam was the most insulating, socks were mediocre and tinfoil was a horrible insulator. Ask your student if it's possible to cook an egg on the sidewalk on a hot day! And, if it is, how would they pick it up. I'm sure they'll be able to provide you with clever answers. We'll continue our study of properties by changing materials through the use of heating and cooling to highlight reversible and irreversible change.
Third Grade
While magnets may not be magic, they sure are fun to tinker with! Third graders did an awesome job investigating attract and repel. They used their newly-acquired knowledge to design and build solutions that showcased the interactions between magnets. Ask your child to tell you about his/her design solution. Some interesting solutions include a magnetic hand band that will secure your metal coffee cup by using the force of attract. Another solution was a magnetic door latch that is easily opened when your hands are full of groceries. There was also a solution that used magnetic Legos. All very creative ideas constructed by inquisitive students! Next up...friction. It's a hot topic:)
Fourth Grade
Electrical engineering is the name of the game in fourth grade at the moment, and we are having a blast! We've transferred energy in the form of light, heat and sound, studied insulators and conductors, series versus parallel circuits and much more. Students will use this newly-acquired knowledge to come up with an ultimate solution to a problem based on designing an alarm circuit. Ask your child what he/she has learned about circuits and what ideas he/she has for how an alarm circuit will work. Next up...we'll be designing an arcade based on the short film Caine's Arcade. It's going to be the highlight of our school year!
Fifth Grade
Mrs. Burns' class has just finished designing safe escape solutions for Jack. Who's Jack? Why, Jack in the Beanstalk, of course! This has been some of the most creative work your students have done in STEAM class this year. Kudos to them for being able to design effective solutions to getting Jack away from that nasty giant! Ask your child what his/her solution looks like and how it works.
Mrs. Mione's class finished their design solutions last month. Their solutions needed to help Rapunzel in some way. We saw solutions based on zip lines, elevators, pulleys and more. Ask your child how they helped Rapunzel!
Miss Orlando and Miss Elliott's classes having designed and built chairs and pulley systems respectively. I'm so proud of the way these students were able to plan their solutions and execute the designs. Miss Orlando's class is working on documenting their progress in Google Slides. Miss Elliott's class is finishing their pulley systems and will be moving onto Google Slides in the coming weeks.
Great news! Cell Signaling in Beverly has generously granted the Ayers School $1970 toward the purchase of Lego WeDo 2.0! These are robotic-based Legos that the kids will surely enjoy. We'll start using this new technology during the second trimester. Thank you, Cell Signaling!
Fall/Winter Update
Whole-School Investigation
During the first trimester, the whole school engaged in an investigation of sturdy shapes: Squares versus Triangles! Through in-depth exploration using straws and tape as well as K'Nex, students learned that while squares are great for building, they are weak at their vertices and need to be reinforced. They also learned that triangles are quite sturdy and can hold quite a bit of weight even when their vertices are being tested. Ask your children about sturdy shapes!
Kindergarten
Our littlest students also explored sturdy shapes this trimester and are currently building houses out of found materials. Our focus in Kindergarten this trimester has been on working in teams to accomplish a task as real engineers would do! Students have also started using K'Nex as a building material so that we can start to compare found materials to hard plastic in terms of what makes a sturdier building material. Do as much building as you can at home! Most kids love K'Nex, but they also think recyclables are great! Tear apart your recycle bin, give them some tape and let them show you what they can build. Make sure you ask them to build something sturdy. That's our word of the trimester!
First Grade
First graders are answering the question: How do animals use their body parts and senses? They just wrapped up an investigation on how birds use their beaks. This lesson involved students trying out different-sized beaks to pick up foods that birds would normally eat. We had gummy worms, mini Goldfish, and seeds to simulate "real" bird food and used things like popsicle sticks, scissors and toothpicks to simulate beaks. Students learned birds have beaks that are just right for their particular species. We continue this investigation by reading a series of books by Sandra Markle entitled, "What if You Had...?" Students will explore books about different types of animal teeth, hair, feet and ears then will be challenged to genetically engineer a made-up animal that uses its parts in unique ways. We've just started exploring how "mixed-up" animals might use their parts using a website called switchzoo.com. This is a free resource and totally fun. Check it out at home, and ask your student about how animals use their parts.
Second and Third Grades
Thanks to all second and third grade families who contributed bags toward our bag failure investigation. Students analyzed data from tests of three bags and compared the relative strengths and weaknesses of how each bag performed. Specifically, we had a paper versus plastic debate and really analyzed how handles perform on bags. You'll be surprised to find out what happened! Ask your student what happened when we added weight after weight to a Trader Joe's shopping bag! Ask him/her what happened to the ordinary plastic bags from Stop and Shop and Market Basket. The results are pretty cool! Watch this video with your child. We watched it at school to enhance our conversation of what test engineers do at work. Our students acted as test engineers at school. Wouldn't it be great if some of them decided on this career path someday?
During the second trimester, students will use Google Slides to document the work they did on their bag investigation. Students will learn how to: create a slideshow, gain an understanding of where certain keys are on the keyboard, use text features such as bold, italics, underline, insert pictures, create slide transitions, use proper spelling and grammar, and communicate their findings with their peers. Have your student practice his/her typing skills at home from time to time! This site is great for a rainy or snowy day!
Fourth Grade and Mrs. Burns, Mrs. Mione and Miss Orlando's Classes
Our older students have been applying what they know about sturdy shapes to construct prototypes of chairs. You'll be amazed at what these kids have done with found materials! During their prototyping, students are asked to consider failure points and decide what types of improvements need to be made. They are truly learning how to work with given constraints such as materials available and time as "real" engineers would do in their actual jobs. Chairs had to pass three tests: fit test, sit test and drop test. Ask your student what all of this means in their design process. Students were also challenged to build a wheelchair out of K'Nex and compare how the found materials and K'nex compare in terms of ease of use. Ask your student which building material he/she preferred!
During the second trimester, students will use Google Slides to document the work they did on building their prototypes. Students will learn how to: create a slideshow, gain an understanding of where certain keys are on the keyboard, use text features such as bold, italics, underline, insert pictures, create slide transitions, use proper spelling and grammar, and communicate their findings with their peers. Have your student practice his/her typing skills at home from time to time! This site is great for a rainy or snowy day!
Miss Elliott's Fifth Grade - Creativity Class
In Creativity Class, fifth graders in Miss Elliott's class have been exploring the fairly tale, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In STEAM, students have started designing and building beds for Goldilocks. We figure if she has her own comfortable bed, she won't need to break into other people's houses to try theirs:) Students have made the most amazing beds out of found materials and K'Nex. They are becoming more comfortable with the Engineering Design Process which involves planning before building. Kids are natural builders, but many struggle with planning so this portion of the assignment was challenging for many kids! You might notice that your child is building with more and more recyclables at home. Encourage this even though they might make a mess. They are applying what they've learned in STEAM which makes this teacher quite happy!
ARCHIVED NEWS FROM THE 2015-2016 SCHOOL YEAR:
Our district-wide STEAM team is pleased to announce that we were awarded a grant from the Hardscrabble Foundation! This grant for approximately $25,000 was used to buy the Engineering is Elementary curriculum from the Museum of Science, Boston. We're looking forward to integrating this curriculum into our classes!
January/February News
Are your children still interested in coding? Remind them to visit code.org to polish up on their coding skills!
For grades three though five: Need help with your science fair project? I'm here for you, young scientists! We can work together during class or after school. Just let me know how I can help!
Kindergarten
We're talking about animals and animal adaptations. This works out well since this is a topic the children explored as part of their reading program! Parents could ask their children how animals grow and change. As a review, ask your child about food chains. We've also started using TuxPaint to work on our computer skills! If you're interested in helping your child learn about where the keys are located on the keyboard, visit this website: abcya com! You'll find two typing skills games here that are fun and educational. Your child will review their letter-naming skills as well as how to use a keyboard.
First Grade
Our unit on light is coming to a close. Students learned about ultra violet light and how it causes a sunburn. They also experimented with UV beads that only changed color when we took them outside. Our experiment also included coating the beads with different SPFs. Parents can ask their children what they learned about light, how ultraviolet light can cause damage to skin and why wearing sunblock is so important. We've also started using Microsoft Word as our documentation tool to report what we've learned about this experiment. If students have Word or another word processing program at home, they should be encouraged to type as many words as they know! They can also change fonts, font color and font size. They've been working on how to start sentences with uppercase letters using the shift key as well as using the enter and backspace keys. Our next unit of study will be related to animals!
Second Grade
Our unit on balancing and weighing comes to a close in February. Parents might be interested to know that their students have learned what a lever is and how to position a fulcrum. The children have also assembled equal arm balances and experimented with various objects to see how they could equilibrate the balance. We used the symbols for greater than, less than and equal to to describe relationships between objects. We also touched upon other simple machines such as pulleys and inclined places during this course of study. Ask a second grader how they might extract a giant potato from the ground. They might just surprise you with their application of how simple machines can actually make hard work, well, simple! Our next unit of study will be soil.
Third Grade
Space...not only is it vast, it's also vastly complicated:) I've heard questions such as: "What was the Big Bang?" "Do black holes really exist?" "What makes it day and night?" "How come it's so dark in space?" Whew! Great questions, right? The students have learned about how the earth and moon orbit the sun. They are currently completing a mini project involving a scale model of the earth and moon orbiting the sun focusing on the relationships between the sizes of the celestial bodies mentioned. Students were also asked to describe, in writing, what happened in their models. We're starting planet research in February. Students will use two websites to gather information about a planet of their choice. Sorry, Pluto, you didn't make the cut. Information gathered will be used during their language arts block to create planet reports. This unit culminates with a study of space probes, landers and orbiters. Students will then construct their own space vehicle! Just for fun (Ok, more for learning purposes than for fun, but don't tell them I said that!), I recommend that parents download a free app called SkyView. SkyView "brings stargazing to everyone, and it's totally free! Simply point your iPhone, iPad, or iPod at the sky to identify stars, constellations, satellites, and more!" I let the students take a peek at the app on my phone and many of our third graders were intrigued!
Fourth Grade
Bright ideas are surfacing as we study electrical circuits. Students have created simple circuits, investigated insulators and conductors, added switches to their circuits and now understand the inner workings of light bulbs. We've delved into schematics focusing on how electrical engineers would represent the different elements of a circuit. Next on the agenda is adding motors and propellors to the circuits as well as creating electromagnets. The unit culminates with a final project that incorporates electrical engineering. Students will design an alarm circuit! Ask your fourth grader what they've learned about electricity in STEAM!
Fifth Grade
Fifth graders have been busy reviewing magnetism and electricity. Their teachers assisted them with building Maglev trains which was challenging and rewarding. Ask your fifth grader what he/she knows about "attract" and "repel" and how these terms were crucial when deigning their trains. Coming up next, students learn about ecosystems and review what they know about food chains, food webs, types of eaters and more!
Archived News
November/December News
Whole-School Initiative:
Students in grades K-5 are super excited about learning how to become computer programmers! We've started exploring the site code.org, and will continue to use this invaluable resource throughout the year. Please encourage your child to use this site at home. Learning how to write code at a young age builds logical reasoning and math skills that are important throughout one's life. Plus...writing code is fun!
Kindergarten
Our littlest learners are learning about living non-living things. We've discussed criteria that makes something living: it breathes, it can reproduce (make more of itself), it moves, it eats, it drinks, it gets rid of waste, it will die someday. Ask your child about cartoons on television. Have a discussion around whether or not cartoons are alive. I've heard from some students that the Cat in the Hat is living:) We had a long discussion about that "fact"!
We'll be moving on to "who eats what" this month. Ask your child about food chains. Also, please find a great food-chain game located in the kindergarten links section of this site.
First Grade
Tap, tap, tap! Bang, bang, bang! Boom, boom, boom! It's drumming time in first grade! We're excited to discuss the science behind drumming and how drums are made. Thanks to all who have contributed coffee cans, elastics, plastic bags and countless other items to our drum project. Our performance on November 5th was great! The children did a wonderful job making music with their drums.
Next, we're moving on to light waves. We'll study how light is reflected, how it shines through different materials and use big words like "translucent" and "opaque". Is that too difficult for first graders? No way...these kids are smart!
Second Grade
May the force be with you. Second graders are learning about force and motion. We'll be building ramps, racing cars, learning about friction and talking about how gravity really is a mystery. Second graders visited LegoLand this month which was great! All of the designing and building they've done in STEAM helped them build with Legos on the field trip.
Third Grade
What's the matter? Well, solids, liquids and gases are "what's the matter"! Third graders will test various types of matter and discover how physical properties can be changed. We'll also explore how gases may be invisible but do take up space. Ask your student about how carbon dioxide filled a balloon! In addition, we'll take our newly acquired knowledge about states of matter and create a PowerPoint presentation to showcase what we've learned.
Second Grade, Third Grade, and Fourth Grade (First and Fifth, too!)
We started off the first three weeks of the year exploring the concept, "What does a scientist do?" Students were able to get their hands on tools a scientist would use: funnels, pipettes, magnifying glasses, magnets, motors and more. They used those tools to ask questions, gather information, created hypotheses, conduct experiments, observe and record results and share those results with classmates. The next three weeks were spent exploring the concept, "What does an engineer do?" Students enjoyed virtual field trips where they met scientists and engineers at work. They also engaged in engineering-design projects where what seemed impossible really was possible with some teamwork! Students in grades two, three and four also graphed the data they collected in these engineering challenges in Excel. Ask them to see the graphs if you haven't seen them already.
Fourth Grade
Dirty water, clean it up! In fourth grade, students study the water cycle. In STEAM, we'll be extending this topic by exploring how dirty water gets cleaned up before we drink it. Students will observe what dirty water looks like under a microscope. What they see moving around will likely be shocking...and gross! Then they will construct mini water filtration systems and compare the cleaner water to what they had seen prior to filtering and treating it.
Fifth Grade
Fifth graders have embarked on a mission to become inventors. Their latest invention is a parachute that will get Jack from Jack in the Beanstalk safely on the ground as he tries to escape the dreaded giant. It's a fun project. Thanks to all who have contributed materials to make this happen!
Our littlest students also explored sturdy shapes this trimester and are currently building houses out of found materials. Our focus in Kindergarten this trimester has been on working in teams to accomplish a task as real engineers would do! Students have also started using K'Nex as a building material so that we can start to compare found materials to hard plastic in terms of what makes a sturdier building material. Do as much building as you can at home! Most kids love K'Nex, but they also think recyclables are great! Tear apart your recycle bin, give them some tape and let them show you what they can build. Make sure you ask them to build something sturdy. That's our word of the trimester!
First Grade
First graders are answering the question: How do animals use their body parts and senses? They just wrapped up an investigation on how birds use their beaks. This lesson involved students trying out different-sized beaks to pick up foods that birds would normally eat. We had gummy worms, mini Goldfish, and seeds to simulate "real" bird food and used things like popsicle sticks, scissors and toothpicks to simulate beaks. Students learned birds have beaks that are just right for their particular species. We continue this investigation by reading a series of books by Sandra Markle entitled, "What if You Had...?" Students will explore books about different types of animal teeth, hair, feet and ears then will be challenged to genetically engineer a made-up animal that uses its parts in unique ways. We've just started exploring how "mixed-up" animals might use their parts using a website called switchzoo.com. This is a free resource and totally fun. Check it out at home, and ask your student about how animals use their parts.
Second and Third Grades
Thanks to all second and third grade families who contributed bags toward our bag failure investigation. Students analyzed data from tests of three bags and compared the relative strengths and weaknesses of how each bag performed. Specifically, we had a paper versus plastic debate and really analyzed how handles perform on bags. You'll be surprised to find out what happened! Ask your student what happened when we added weight after weight to a Trader Joe's shopping bag! Ask him/her what happened to the ordinary plastic bags from Stop and Shop and Market Basket. The results are pretty cool! Watch this video with your child. We watched it at school to enhance our conversation of what test engineers do at work. Our students acted as test engineers at school. Wouldn't it be great if some of them decided on this career path someday?
During the second trimester, students will use Google Slides to document the work they did on their bag investigation. Students will learn how to: create a slideshow, gain an understanding of where certain keys are on the keyboard, use text features such as bold, italics, underline, insert pictures, create slide transitions, use proper spelling and grammar, and communicate their findings with their peers. Have your student practice his/her typing skills at home from time to time! This site is great for a rainy or snowy day!
Fourth Grade and Mrs. Burns, Mrs. Mione and Miss Orlando's Classes
Our older students have been applying what they know about sturdy shapes to construct prototypes of chairs. You'll be amazed at what these kids have done with found materials! During their prototyping, students are asked to consider failure points and decide what types of improvements need to be made. They are truly learning how to work with given constraints such as materials available and time as "real" engineers would do in their actual jobs. Chairs had to pass three tests: fit test, sit test and drop test. Ask your student what all of this means in their design process. Students were also challenged to build a wheelchair out of K'Nex and compare how the found materials and K'nex compare in terms of ease of use. Ask your student which building material he/she preferred!
During the second trimester, students will use Google Slides to document the work they did on building their prototypes. Students will learn how to: create a slideshow, gain an understanding of where certain keys are on the keyboard, use text features such as bold, italics, underline, insert pictures, create slide transitions, use proper spelling and grammar, and communicate their findings with their peers. Have your student practice his/her typing skills at home from time to time! This site is great for a rainy or snowy day!
Miss Elliott's Fifth Grade - Creativity Class
In Creativity Class, fifth graders in Miss Elliott's class have been exploring the fairly tale, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In STEAM, students have started designing and building beds for Goldilocks. We figure if she has her own comfortable bed, she won't need to break into other people's houses to try theirs:) Students have made the most amazing beds out of found materials and K'Nex. They are becoming more comfortable with the Engineering Design Process which involves planning before building. Kids are natural builders, but many struggle with planning so this portion of the assignment was challenging for many kids! You might notice that your child is building with more and more recyclables at home. Encourage this even though they might make a mess. They are applying what they've learned in STEAM which makes this teacher quite happy!
ARCHIVED NEWS FROM THE 2015-2016 SCHOOL YEAR:
Our district-wide STEAM team is pleased to announce that we were awarded a grant from the Hardscrabble Foundation! This grant for approximately $25,000 was used to buy the Engineering is Elementary curriculum from the Museum of Science, Boston. We're looking forward to integrating this curriculum into our classes!
January/February News
Are your children still interested in coding? Remind them to visit code.org to polish up on their coding skills!
For grades three though five: Need help with your science fair project? I'm here for you, young scientists! We can work together during class or after school. Just let me know how I can help!
Kindergarten
We're talking about animals and animal adaptations. This works out well since this is a topic the children explored as part of their reading program! Parents could ask their children how animals grow and change. As a review, ask your child about food chains. We've also started using TuxPaint to work on our computer skills! If you're interested in helping your child learn about where the keys are located on the keyboard, visit this website: abcya com! You'll find two typing skills games here that are fun and educational. Your child will review their letter-naming skills as well as how to use a keyboard.
First Grade
Our unit on light is coming to a close. Students learned about ultra violet light and how it causes a sunburn. They also experimented with UV beads that only changed color when we took them outside. Our experiment also included coating the beads with different SPFs. Parents can ask their children what they learned about light, how ultraviolet light can cause damage to skin and why wearing sunblock is so important. We've also started using Microsoft Word as our documentation tool to report what we've learned about this experiment. If students have Word or another word processing program at home, they should be encouraged to type as many words as they know! They can also change fonts, font color and font size. They've been working on how to start sentences with uppercase letters using the shift key as well as using the enter and backspace keys. Our next unit of study will be related to animals!
Second Grade
Our unit on balancing and weighing comes to a close in February. Parents might be interested to know that their students have learned what a lever is and how to position a fulcrum. The children have also assembled equal arm balances and experimented with various objects to see how they could equilibrate the balance. We used the symbols for greater than, less than and equal to to describe relationships between objects. We also touched upon other simple machines such as pulleys and inclined places during this course of study. Ask a second grader how they might extract a giant potato from the ground. They might just surprise you with their application of how simple machines can actually make hard work, well, simple! Our next unit of study will be soil.
Third Grade
Space...not only is it vast, it's also vastly complicated:) I've heard questions such as: "What was the Big Bang?" "Do black holes really exist?" "What makes it day and night?" "How come it's so dark in space?" Whew! Great questions, right? The students have learned about how the earth and moon orbit the sun. They are currently completing a mini project involving a scale model of the earth and moon orbiting the sun focusing on the relationships between the sizes of the celestial bodies mentioned. Students were also asked to describe, in writing, what happened in their models. We're starting planet research in February. Students will use two websites to gather information about a planet of their choice. Sorry, Pluto, you didn't make the cut. Information gathered will be used during their language arts block to create planet reports. This unit culminates with a study of space probes, landers and orbiters. Students will then construct their own space vehicle! Just for fun (Ok, more for learning purposes than for fun, but don't tell them I said that!), I recommend that parents download a free app called SkyView. SkyView "brings stargazing to everyone, and it's totally free! Simply point your iPhone, iPad, or iPod at the sky to identify stars, constellations, satellites, and more!" I let the students take a peek at the app on my phone and many of our third graders were intrigued!
Fourth Grade
Bright ideas are surfacing as we study electrical circuits. Students have created simple circuits, investigated insulators and conductors, added switches to their circuits and now understand the inner workings of light bulbs. We've delved into schematics focusing on how electrical engineers would represent the different elements of a circuit. Next on the agenda is adding motors and propellors to the circuits as well as creating electromagnets. The unit culminates with a final project that incorporates electrical engineering. Students will design an alarm circuit! Ask your fourth grader what they've learned about electricity in STEAM!
Fifth Grade
Fifth graders have been busy reviewing magnetism and electricity. Their teachers assisted them with building Maglev trains which was challenging and rewarding. Ask your fifth grader what he/she knows about "attract" and "repel" and how these terms were crucial when deigning their trains. Coming up next, students learn about ecosystems and review what they know about food chains, food webs, types of eaters and more!
Archived News
November/December News
Whole-School Initiative:
Students in grades K-5 are super excited about learning how to become computer programmers! We've started exploring the site code.org, and will continue to use this invaluable resource throughout the year. Please encourage your child to use this site at home. Learning how to write code at a young age builds logical reasoning and math skills that are important throughout one's life. Plus...writing code is fun!
Kindergarten
Our littlest learners are learning about living non-living things. We've discussed criteria that makes something living: it breathes, it can reproduce (make more of itself), it moves, it eats, it drinks, it gets rid of waste, it will die someday. Ask your child about cartoons on television. Have a discussion around whether or not cartoons are alive. I've heard from some students that the Cat in the Hat is living:) We had a long discussion about that "fact"!
We'll be moving on to "who eats what" this month. Ask your child about food chains. Also, please find a great food-chain game located in the kindergarten links section of this site.
First Grade
Tap, tap, tap! Bang, bang, bang! Boom, boom, boom! It's drumming time in first grade! We're excited to discuss the science behind drumming and how drums are made. Thanks to all who have contributed coffee cans, elastics, plastic bags and countless other items to our drum project. Our performance on November 5th was great! The children did a wonderful job making music with their drums.
Next, we're moving on to light waves. We'll study how light is reflected, how it shines through different materials and use big words like "translucent" and "opaque". Is that too difficult for first graders? No way...these kids are smart!
Second Grade
May the force be with you. Second graders are learning about force and motion. We'll be building ramps, racing cars, learning about friction and talking about how gravity really is a mystery. Second graders visited LegoLand this month which was great! All of the designing and building they've done in STEAM helped them build with Legos on the field trip.
Third Grade
What's the matter? Well, solids, liquids and gases are "what's the matter"! Third graders will test various types of matter and discover how physical properties can be changed. We'll also explore how gases may be invisible but do take up space. Ask your student about how carbon dioxide filled a balloon! In addition, we'll take our newly acquired knowledge about states of matter and create a PowerPoint presentation to showcase what we've learned.
Second Grade, Third Grade, and Fourth Grade (First and Fifth, too!)
We started off the first three weeks of the year exploring the concept, "What does a scientist do?" Students were able to get their hands on tools a scientist would use: funnels, pipettes, magnifying glasses, magnets, motors and more. They used those tools to ask questions, gather information, created hypotheses, conduct experiments, observe and record results and share those results with classmates. The next three weeks were spent exploring the concept, "What does an engineer do?" Students enjoyed virtual field trips where they met scientists and engineers at work. They also engaged in engineering-design projects where what seemed impossible really was possible with some teamwork! Students in grades two, three and four also graphed the data they collected in these engineering challenges in Excel. Ask them to see the graphs if you haven't seen them already.
Fourth Grade
Dirty water, clean it up! In fourth grade, students study the water cycle. In STEAM, we'll be extending this topic by exploring how dirty water gets cleaned up before we drink it. Students will observe what dirty water looks like under a microscope. What they see moving around will likely be shocking...and gross! Then they will construct mini water filtration systems and compare the cleaner water to what they had seen prior to filtering and treating it.
Fifth Grade
Fifth graders have embarked on a mission to become inventors. Their latest invention is a parachute that will get Jack from Jack in the Beanstalk safely on the ground as he tries to escape the dreaded giant. It's a fun project. Thanks to all who have contributed materials to make this happen!