Balancing With 2nd Graders!

Over the past few weeks 2nd grade has been immersed in their balance and motion unit.  They have been finding the balancing point of objects, figuring out how to make an object stable and seeing what happens when counterweights are introduced! 

Just how easy is it to balance a cup on your head
 and walk around the room?

Is it easier to balance on one foot with your eyes open or closed?
Is it easier to balance on one foot with your hands by your
side or out?

"It's kind of easy to find the balancing point on the crayfish!"

Can you balance the crayfish in different ways
with the clothespins?

I balanced it on my thumb!

"The clothespins add weight."

 After balancing the crayfish, we tried balancing two shapes (triangle and arch) as many ways as possible using one, two or no clothespins.  This time we balanced the shapes, not on our finger, but on a craft stick!

"I can balance the arch with one clothespin!"

The triangle was balancing right at the very edge when...it fell off!

Now we are making our own shapes and predicting where the clothespins need to be for our shape to balance! 

I balanced it!

This is just balancing at the tip!

"Well, this shape is kind of lying down on my finger..."

Wilma Jean Garden Fundraiser Monday, February 6th!

Some of the 2nd graders made cards of their favorite fruit or vegetable to be shown at Wilma Jean tomorrow!  50% of the proceeds on Monday night will go towards the PS58 garden!  Go support our garden and have a fabulous meal! See you there!

1st Graders Become Engineers!

1st graders have been using their knowledge about properties of solids to build bridges and towers! Each structure uses different materials that have distinct uses based on their properties. We discussed the purpose of a bridge (to cross over something) and decided that there had to be room for something (car, boat, train, people) to pass under the bridge. Each student had the same amount of supplies and....no glue, scissor or tape could be used!

Some people worked on their own.

Some people worked together.

This bridge is long and goes around the corner!

The rubber bands can be tricky to use!

A tunnel bridge.

A covered bridge.

A boat with a red sail to pass under!

This bridge even has an on/off ramp!

A slim bridge.

Next class, new challenge! Building and measuring a stable tower! We also had a new material to work with - aluminum foil! This time we draw our tower in our journals and measured how tall it was.

We have to use two rulers to measure how tall our tower is.

I made my tower lean like the leaning tower of Pisa.

I made the Eiffel Tower.

Kindergarten Looks at Wood!

Who knew wood was so interesting?  Kindergarteners do!  We have been looking at the properties of wood samples and describing what we see.  Some of the wood pieces were hard (linden) and others were soft (pine); some were rough (plywood and particle board) while others were smooth (redwood, pine and linden).  We noticed the different colors of the wood and we all agreed that the redwood didn't smell very good!

How long is the wood sample?

The wood is smooth.

Look!

I'm not sure how it smells.

Tada!

Sometimes you just need to build!

This is such a tall tower!

Next we put water on the wood to see what happens.  We had some big surprises!

The redwood gets darker when it's wet.

Look!  The wood sticks together when it gets wet!

Some of the wood looks lighter.

At first the water looks like bubbles.

Water, water everywhere!

We made predictions about whether the wood samples would sink or float.....and they all floated!