Rube Goldberg Contraptions

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This week our engineers worked in teams to design Rube Goldberg contraptions. A Rube Goldberg contraption is a chain reaction that accomplishes a simple task in a complicated way. Each team was challenged to design a contraption with at least three steps, that deposited a ball into a cup at the end. This challenge provided students with an opportunity to learn and practice several skills. First, students had to practice collaborating in an assigned team. They needed to take others’ ideas into account and assertively share their own ideas. Second, this task provided students with ample opportunities to practice grit and resilience. None of the contraptions worked correctly the first try! Instead, engineers had to make adjustments, try new ideas, and problem solve issues that arose. Lastly, this experience gave students a chance to explore foundational physics concepts such as force, motion, gravity. Many teams are close to completing the challenge and students will be sharing their contraptions with the group next week!

In math, both grades are beginning geometry lessons that will focus on shapes and then measurement. We read a book called Grandfather Tang’s Story and learned that tangrams are ancient Chinese puzzles that are still used today. Tangrams begin with a square that is partitioned into seven shapes, or tans. People can those shapes to create their own pictures and to tell stories. Students created several interesting tangram shapes. They also solved tangram challenges where they were given a picture, such as a storm cloud, and had to create that same picture using all seven tans without any overlapping. They had to manipulate and rotate the shapes to solve the puzzle. This too required persistence. Students used geoboards and rubber bands to create shapes and use geometry terminology.

On Friday mornings Steven’s dad, Mr. Greg, works with small groups of second graders on completing engineering activities. The first group finished building and testing their mini vacuum cleaners this week and got to share those with the group.

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve received several Flat Stanley updates. Several of these updates are quite lengthy and full of interesting information.  We’ve been slowly reading and discussing these updates while admiring photos from around our country and the world. We started learning a song called Fifty Nifty United States to help us remember the state names. We also continued our Charlotte’s Web read aloud. We are excited to see a performance of Charlotte’s Web at our local theater next month. Our first grade readers have been practicing reading their buddy books with good fluency and expression. Many second grade reading groups have been reading Scholastic magazines or new chapter books.

Felt Balls, Reading Buddies, and Library Cards

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This four-day week flew by in a flurry of excitement and new activities. Ms. Linda came in to teach us how to make felt dryer balls using roving. This activity required much persistence and stamina as students carefully added bits of roving to the ball, using firm pressure to create a spherical shape. We will continue our work on this project next week. Today was the much-anticipated first meeting with our preschool buddies too! All week long Otters practiced reading their books with good expression and fluency. Then they meet with buddies from both the Dolphins and Seals class to read their stories. Our Otter students read with good expression and respectful behavior; truly stepping up as role models for our community. We will continue to meet with our preschool buddies each Friday. This afternoon we visited the Pacific University library. The librarians there had been preparing for our visit by purchasing new children’s books, creating a cozy reading corner for young readers, and printing library cards. Students received their own university library cards that they can use each week to check out books. We felt so welcomed in this lovely university space and we can’t wait to for more library trips.

Music Making and Egg Drop #2

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This week Ms. McKenzie returned for some joyful music making! Each Wednesday she will visit our classroom to teach us about songs, rhythm, and musical terminology. This week we learned the names of different musical notes and learned a song called Little Johnny Brown. We used our music notebooks to begin learning how to read music. This week students visited our Otter popcorn stand and they are getting better at counting change to purchase their popcorn. During our unit study time students got hands-on experience with the engineering design process. They worked in teams to modify their initial designs to be more successful. We’ve been discussing how scientists and engineers must be incredibly persistent. Often times our designs don’t work the first time and scientists must modify and retest. Students who were successful with their egg drop contraption last week had to design a new contraption without using bubble wrap. This was tricky for many students! We spent a lot of time discussing what worked well in our designs, what didn’t work, and what we wanted to try next. This week Steven’s dad, Mr. Greg, visited the classroom to begin working on an engineering project with a small group of second graders. He will continue coming on Fridays to work with small groups of engineers in the coming weeks. In addition, Ms. Cassie began a mini-unit on coding. Each Friday afternoon students will spend time learning more about coding. Today students made some interesting observations in our outdoor classroom. We noticed some tracks in the sandbox that students believe were left by a raccoon. We also noticed fungus growing on the cedar tower.

Egg Drop Contraptions

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Students and teachers were delighted to be back together again after a two week winter break. This week students were excited to discover that our daily morning letter now has strategically-placed errors for them to find. Students must use their knowledge of writing conventions, spelling patterns, and sight words to discover these errors. This week we launched our engineering unit. We learned about the design process: ask, imagine (brainstorm), plan, create, and improve. For their first engineering challenge students worked in teams to design a contraption that would prevent an egg breaking when dropped from a ledge onto the concrete ground. After asking questions, imagining, and creating designs, students had an opportunity to test their contraptions. They CAREFULLY stood on a ledge above concrete to drop their egg contraptions. We learned that some materials and designs protected the egg better than others. Next week students will reflect on what worked well about their design and what didn’t work before creating a second contraption to protect their eggs. Students demonstrated grit and perseverance as they worked through design challenges that arose. In writer’s workshop this week we launched a unit called Small Moments : Personal Narrative Writing. We are learning how to zoom in on a small moment in our lives and write about that experience with vivid detail. This is tricky work! This week we received multiple Flat Stanley updates and Andrew’s Aunt Bee came in to tell us about Flat Bingo’s experience on a hay farm in Wyoming. In math our first graders are learning how to tell time and our second graders are learning how to solve challenging story problems and addition problems that involve regrouping. Wesley did an excellent job representing our class at our Friday Summit!

Clay Creations and Festive Fun

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This week was a whirlwind of fun and learning as we wrapped up projects before winter break. First, we were delighted to get our clay creations back from the kiln. We applauded as each artist shared their creation with the class. Thank you, Ms. Casey, the leading this phenomenal project! This week we also created top secret holiday gifts for our families. We wrote cards and decorated gift bags for our family gifts. On Wednesday we worked in small groups to read and follow a recipe for sweet bread in preparation for Thursday’s Bread Celebration. Thursday morning Ms. Libby came in to share about a tradition in the UK called Christmas crackers. This tradition involves opening a “cracker”, which makes a noise and then reveals a joke/riddle and small gift. Ms. Libby helped students write jokes and riddles for their own Christmas crackers. We decided to save our Christmas crackers to enjoy during our afternoon bread celebration. For the bread celebration we lit candles, read a Gingerbread story, and enjoyed opening our Christmas crackers before sampling several types of bread. A huge thank you to Libby for the fun project and for donating the extra loaves of bread for us to sample. We got to try sweet bread, brioche, marzipan, focaccia, and banana nut bread. Yum! This afternoon Ms. Robin came in to teach her next elements of design art lesson. We reviewed the primary and secondary colors. We learned about a color wheel and complementary colors. This week we also learned two new spelling patterns, wrapped up our Chapter 3 math modules, and finished our informative writing unit. Students have been enjoying learning materials gifted by ELC families this week. We learned how to play a game called Mountain Raiders and have been loving our life cycle puzzles and models. We also enjoyed hearing some Flat Stanley updates, including a presentation from Claire and Juliette about some behind the scenes adventures. Tomorrow we are looking forward to a cozy pajama day before we depart for winter break.