We stopping spelling tests after the MAP tests. We will have homework Wednesday and Thursday. The final homework is assignment is to make a musical instrument. It must be able to change it’s pitch. Parent can help construct the instrument, but the design needs to be the student’s idea. They will present their instruments Monday.

I attached a copy of the instrument letter and scoring guide.

We are beginning a new project on Famous Inventors. We will research the inventors with partners and make a book out of them. However, this book will be shared with the whole world. We will use our research to create a book called Famous Inventors on Wikijunior.

The purpose of Wikijunior is to produce age-appropriate non-fiction books for children from birth to age 12. Wikijunior is a sub-project of Wikibooks, which is a community working to create a free library of educational textbooks that anyone can edit. Wikibooks is a sister project of Wikipedia, the largest encyclopedia in the world.

By contributing our researh to Wikijunior, we are making a permanent contribution to the world. Children all over the globe will be able to learn from and add to what we will have done on this project. What a great legacy to leave behind here at the end of our 3rd grade year.

Here is SW Missouri, our lunar eclipse observations Wednesday night were a bust.   An ice storm moved in, obscured the sky,  and iced us over.  Here is a summary of what we missed.

Thanks Mr. Eclipse for the great eclipse animation.

I wrote a previous post about lunar eclipses. You will get to see on Wednesday, February 20th the best total lunar eclipse since 2004. It will start around 7:45 pm and reach its peak around 9:00 pm. Be sure to watch!

Did you know that the moon doesn’t disappear during a lunar eclipse? Instead, it turns red. Here is an explanation of why.

Mr. Eclipse also has this great multiple exposure of a lunar eclipse over Maui.

Thanks to Mr. Eclipse for this great resource on lunar and solar eclipses.

We are doing more than just learning Science.  We are doing Science.  We used lots of hands-on materials and tools to experience, explore, observe, and investigate science.  We felt like real scientist!

We have been studying a unit on Solar Systems. We made models to explain what causes day and night Can you pick out which model just explains day and night without any extras? We have also been studying the moon and its phases. We’ll have more on that later.

Here is a photo gallery from our Plants inquiry science kit. We learned about scientific investigations and the tools used for them. We then planted Wisconsin Fast Plants and watched them grow. We made close observations and measurements while they grew. We cross pollinated the flowers with “bee-sticks” we made. Finally, we harvested the seed from the pods that grew from the flowers. It was fascinating fun.

This makes our 3rd podcast. Wow! We finished a hand-on inquiry- based science kit in which we planted Wisconsin Fast Plant seeds and observed them as they grew. The students learned a lot more details about the plants and flowers than ever before. It was a lot of fun and we learned a lot. Listen to find out the most important thing each student says they learned.

Music: ninefurseiben by .22 on their album Screw CC downloaded from the Podsafe Music Network

 

 Episode 3 - Our Plant Unit [5:49m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (35)