Energy, Light and Motion

We have begun our unit on Energy, Light and Motion; students know a lot about  these topics. A few things they wondered were... what is a pendulum? How strong does air have to be to move something? How do you change the direction of a moving object? How do you make an object move faster or slower? How does sound travel?

We began making mazes on the carpet, we explored different movements and directions the ball could roll. We built loops and problem solved how to make the maze go over itself and make a bridge.

This week we began taking a look at pendulums. What are they? What can they do? How do they move?
A provocation on a wrecking ball type pendulum was set up in the block area. Students built towers and swung the pendulum to knock them down. They quickly learned that the towers had to be tall enough and thin enough; if their buildings were too stable, they wouldn't fall.

Pictures were taken with a multi-shot option on the camera. The camera takes about twenty photos in quick succession and when put together, the images make a short, stop-motion video.

See our entire collection of pendulum pictures here.

Students are very interested in how the pendulum moves and what it can do, have you seen any pendulums at home or in the community? Some common examples are wrecking balls, grandfather clocks and swing sets.

Gardening

This month, our classroom has been working on gardening, compost and nature.

We've got two long term projects going; one is a compost pile and the other is our garden. The students have chosen to grow tomatoes and squash.

We've explored soil and seeds, and decided what is safe to compost. Students have predicted that it will take 20 days to make the foods in our compost pile turn to soil.

Today we plated our seedlings in the garden boxes, students are working on signs for the plants now. We plan to measure, record, observe and draw the plants over the course of the summer. We can't wait to pick the vegetables and start making recipes!

See all of the photos from this unit so far here.

BBGC Recognition Dinner

I want to give a very extra special thank you to all of the families who were able to join us for the recognition dinner last night. The students were so excited to receive their medals and be honored for being all around great kids!

I also need to express how extraordinarily proud I am of the student's behavior and responsibility at last night's event.

Here is a link to all of the pictures from the event, you can also find more on the school's Facebook page!

Happy Mother's Day!

Classroom 5A teachers and students would like to wish everyone a Happy Mother's Day this weekend!

Spring into Art

Our class is studying the art of Leonid Afremov, he was born in 1955 in Belarus (found between Russia and Poland).  He works mainly with a palette knife and oils; he paints landscapes, city scenes, seascapes, flowers and portraits. Afremov was influenced by the work of March Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Salvatore Dali, Armedeo Modigliani and the 19^th century French impressionists. 

A link to his artwork can be found here and here. 

Our students have been studying different ways to create art, the different genres of art (Landscape, portrait, still life and genre-painting) and the process an artist goes through to make art.

Our focus book this month, Molly Meets Mona and Friends by Denise Bennett Minnely, was about a young girl who goes to an art museum and interacts with the famous art she sees. She sees work by Claude Monet, Alexander Calder, Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky and Lois Maliou Jones. Artists that work with paint, watercolor, stone, wire and dots.

We are now looking into symmetry and how it plays into art. Students have taken small group trips to the museum to work in the art studio.


See all of our photos here!

Roots to Shoots: A Garden Club Visit

We had a workshop with the Bristol Garden Club this morning where we learned all about roots and how plants grow. We learned that we eat roots like carrots and radishes, that roots hold plants in the ground and provide them with nutrients. We also learned that air plants don't have any roots to grow in the ground and some plants can grow roots in the water!

We heard a story about roots and plants, then were able to do an art activity and explore various roots with magnifiers. We examined carrots, radishes, parsnips, ginger and other roots.

In our classroom we have an Boston Fern, two Spider Plants, an air plant, two Golden Pathos Ivy plants, a Prayer Plant and an Amaryllis.

You can see all of the photos here.

Beautiful Stuff

Our students haven been working hard this month creating art, but we have been using our Beautiful Stuff a lot; not only in art, but to build, pattern, sort, make letters and compare.The loose parts we have collected are great to spark the imagination; loose parts can create anything you can think of.

Our students collected:
Shells, rocks, gems, jewelry, sticks, wood pieces, wire, metal pieces, feathers, odd keys, cardboard, shiny plastic, straws, aluminum foil, cotton balls, watches string, and many other items of all shapes and sizes.

Anything can be loose parts, here is a link to the letter we sent home to give families an idea of what to collect.


Check back soon for pictures of our students using loose parts!