Happy Halloween!

Every year around this time, something comes up that calls me away from school, leaving Ms. Frizzle to substitute in my place.
This post comes to you from Guest Author J.M., 1st grade, who was at school today to witness Ms. Frizzle's fabulous fashion choices.

Today is Halloween, and our substitute is Ms. Frizzle from The Magic School Bus.  It is so exciting!  Ms. Frizzle's hair is light orange and curly.  Her dress is black with dancing skeletons on it.  There's a lizard named Liz on her shoulder.  

Her earrings are white skeletons made out of clay.  








She has black shoes with bobblehead skeletons on them, and they jiggle their big fat heads when she walks.

It is very weird.  Maybe she came out of the T.V.


Editor's note:
I understand Ms. Frizzle even taught the children a skeleton song in Spanish today!

Overheard at school today:
"Boy, Ms. Frizzle looks a lot like Ms. S."
"She sure sounds a lot like Ms. S."
"But Ms. Frizzle doesn't wear glasses."
Overjoyed upon spying the skeleton shoes, "Oh! Those are perfect!"
"Ms. Frizzle, one day when we go to the Arboretum, can you wear a plant or animal dress and bring your Magic School Bus?"
One child whispered to another teacher, "I don't mean to be rude, but is that Ms. S's real hair? . . . Oh! Ms. Frizzle!"

Día de Muertos

Around the start of October, a new activity appears on our art shelf: a cardboard skull template to trace, black construction paper, oil pastels, a pair of scissors, and a few laminated examples of calaveras created for Día de Muertos.  

Here's a sample of what the children created:

There's a Book for That!

Calavera Abecedario by Jeanette Winter

Day of the Dead by Tony Johnston

The Spirit of Tio Fernando by Janice Levy

Gift for Abuelita by Nancy Luenn

A few places/events in Houston where you can learn more about this beautiful holiday: 

Casa Ramirez (241 W. 19th St., Houston, TX 77008)

MECA (Multicultural Education and Counseling through the Arts)

Lawndale Art Center

Nature gratitude: Chrysalis

This week, we had something sad happen.  For reasons unknown to us, some children from another class jumped on our child-size outdoor chair until a leg broke.  The two children involved in the incident came with their classroom assistant to apologize to our class, bringing along the chair pieces to show us what had happened.  Room 15 children crowded around, looking shocked and saddened, while we listened to the tearful apology . . . but then we noticed something exciting: a pink chrysalis!  Not only pink, but with a fin-back!

Sometimes, something wonderful can emerge from something sad.  While we were deeply saddened and puzzled by the intentional damage of our chair, we would never have spotted this pink chrysalis had the chair not been broken into pieces.

I did a little Googling and discovered this is the chrysalis of the Cloudless Sulphur Butterfly.  Their pupa can be either green or pink!  We've seen lots of these cheerful yellow butterflies in our garden, but I had never spotted the chrysalis.

You spin me right round

Today, we experimented with the forces that explain why the planets revolve around the sun in an elliptical orbit.  We filled cups about half-full of water.  An object in motion tends to keep moving in the same direction.  Anywhere the cup is as we swing it around, its tendency (along with the water inside) is to fly out and away from us.  So we never get wet (unless, of course, the cup sustains damage, resulting in a hole in the bottom!).  Opposing this inertia is the child pulling the strings to the center.  In this model, each child acts as the sun, with the strings demonstrating the sun's gravitational pull on the planets. 





"10-4-16 Yesterday, we did science.  We filled a paper cup halfway with water and then swung it around our heads to find out if it'll spill.  This is similar to the planets revolving around the sun because I'm the sun, the cup is a planet, and there's a string on the cup.  That string is gravity.  I enjoyed this because I wanted to know if the water would spill."  by L.A., 1st grade

Switch!

The children worked so well and so quickly grasped the concepts behind yesterday's experiment that I decided they were ready to switch things up.  I told them they had access to the same materials as yesterday, but they would use just one Jello box.  Instead, they would need to think of another variable.  They were full of ideas about other variables they could use, and they were excited about being given the freedom to design their own experiments.

Two groups decided to use the mass of the ball as the variable . . . I anticipated this and had a pack of ping-pong balls handy.  The children measured the masses of the golf ball and the ping-pong ball and then measured how far the empty Jello box traveled with the force of each ball hitting it.

golf ball: 47 grams

ping-pong ball: Only 3 grams!

9-30-16
Yesterday, we changed the variable of our experiment.  It's the same as the last experiment except we change from a golf ball to a ping pong ball.  The setup is easy--the same as the last experiment except you also use the ping pong ball.  You use the same tools to measure as last time.  

The ping pong ball made a huge difference because [the box] only went 5 centimeters.  I enjoyed this because we got to change the variable.   
T.C., 1st grade









Another group chose to use ramp height as their variable.

9-30-16

Yesterday we thought of experiments, and we did them!  We need: different sized books, a ruler, a meter stick, a golf ball, and an empty Jello box.  I was changing the height of the ramp.  So you set up the ramp and you need to put the Jello box at the end.  Let the golf ball go down the ramp three times on the shorter ramp and three times on the taller ramp.  I used a meter stick to measure how far the box went.  The taller ramp made the box go farther.  I liked it because I got to make the experiment.  E.G., 3rd grade

A final group designed an experiment that tested the effect of friction, comparing the distance a box traveled on the tile floor versus the carpeted floor (with everything else held constant).  They did three trials on the tile floor and three on the carpet.

May the Force

...be with Jell-O?

Editor's note: Today's post was written by T.C., 1st grade

E.G., 3rd grade

A.C.-S., 3rd grade

9-29-16

Yesterday we learned about force and mass.  To do this experiment you need a golf ball, some books, a meter stick, a ruler, a balance, gram weights, and empty and full Jello boxes.   
(Teacher Materials Tips: In reality, even the "full" Jell-O boxes contain no Jell-O.  Instead, I filled each with a bag of sand to prevent bugs from gathering while the boxes are stored from year to year.  Also, our plastic rulers have a groove down the center that is the perfect guide for the golf ball.)

To set up the ramp, you get some books, stack them up, and position the ruler at an angle on the books.  The variable is empty box or full box.  After you set up the ramp, you place the empty or full Jello box on the floor at the very end of the ruler.  Put the meter stick next to it.  














[Teacher note: The children created scientific illustrations of their materials set-up in their science notebooks before the action started.]





Put the golf ball on top of the ruler and let go.  It will hit the box and use its force to push the box.  














Then use the meter stick to measure how far it went.  


[Teacher note: The children created scientific illustrations of what happened after the ball rolled down the ramp for both the full Jello box and the empty box.]

After you do this three times for both boxes, 


use the pan balance and gram weights to see how much mass each box has.  
[Teacher note: The children used charts to record the distance (in cm) the ball traveled on each of three trials for both the full box and the empty box.  They also used a chart to record the mass of each box.]

The empty box traveled the farthest because it had less mass!  

"I liked the experiment because I like building ramps and stuff."  E.G., 3rd grade
"I enjoyed this experiment because we got to measure."  T.C., 1st grade 
"I enjoyed it because we had to work as a team."  A.C.-S., 3rd grade

There's a Book for That!
Forces Make Things Move by K. Bradley