Butterfly Release

Our butterflies emerged from their chrysalises late last week and we released them on Friday!

States of Matter

Last week we were visited by the Hands-on Museum for a presentation on matter, which reinforced the concepts we are learning about with Ms. Danzinger in Project Lead the Way.  The students observed ice (solid) being melted into water (liquid) and finally water vapor (gas) and then cooling back into water.  They also got to make their own slime, which they learned is a non-Newtonian fluid!

Exploring Iraq

Thank you to Ahmed's mom, who has come in for the past three Fridays to teach our class all about Iraq.  We learned some simple words, about the history and geography of the country, and about the people.  We learned to write our names in Arabic, and created our own clay stamps, modeled after the Sumerian stamping methods.  We also sampled a traditional Iraqi snack of dates and yogurt.  We have also been reading some folk tales from the Iraq.

Science

This week the students began Project Lead The Way (PLTW) with Mrs. Danzinger. We will have PLTW four times per week from now until the end of the school year.  Ask your child to tell you what inventions they've learned were thought up by child inventors.  Also ask them to tell you what problem we are going to be solving in the next couple weeks. (It involves ice pops!)

We have also received baby caterpillars as part of our unit on Life Cycles. We will chart their growth and take care of them through the process of metamorphosis, and release them when they become butterflies.

Parts of a Flower

On Friday the students learned about the parts of a flower with Mrs. Brennan.  When we return from break, we will be starting a new science unit with the Project Lead the Way program.