What Will I Do With All My Spare Time?

Is that the question you've been asking yourself these past few days?!? Have no fear...I am about to share an opportunity for you to practice math and earn a reward upon your return to school. Under the Math is Cool heading in the sidebar, click on Winter Holiday Fun and you will be whisked away to the Winter Packets page where your fun awaits. Scroll down to Fourth Grade and click on the "4th Student Packet" link under Math. Download, print, and complete the packet for an automatic "lunch-bunch" celebration. You may also notice there are Reading and Science packets...feel free to complete those as well! The science will earn you success tickets! This is an awesome way to keep your brain active during the break! I can't wait to see how many of you take advantage of this opportunity!

Circuits at Work!

No matter how you choose to celebrate your winter break...you cannot deny the awesomeness of this display. Can you imagine how much time went in to setting this up!?! This fits perfectly with our discussions in science about series vs. parallel circuits. We know that nowadays, lights are typically arranged in parallel circuits. Think about how many wires must be involved in this display. I thought you might enjoy seeing circuits at work in real-life settings. I just hope the lights aren't arranged in a series circuit!!!

Amazing Grace Techno - Computer Controlled Christmas Lights from Richard Holdman on Vimeo.

Energy Transformations

Energy is the ability to do work. We learned that at MOSH on our field trip. We also learned that it cannot be created or destroyed. Over the next few days, we will be discussing the ways that energy can be transformed (changed) from one form to another. For instance, did you know that you observed a transformation of energy when you built your circuits last week? Well, it's true!

The battery contained energy in chemical form. It works like this. Inside the battery is a metal rod surrounded by a special paste inside a zinc casing. The rod has a chemical reaction with the paste and chemical energy is released. When you connect the wires in a closed circuit, the chemical energy is transformed to electrical energy (inside the battery) that flows through the wires and is transformed again into heat and light energy in the bulb.

Can you think of other examples of energy being transformed from one type to another? If you're having trouble thinking of some on your own, check out the "Energy Transformations" link under "Out of Sight Science Sites." It has a cool game where you can transform energy to power a robot, a city, or a farm. Enjoy!

P.S. If you thought the diagrams we drew in class of Series and Parallel Circuits were complicated, check out this diagram used to design the circuits in a motor.

P.P.S. Just click on the circuit diagram to zoom in and take a closer look. :)

We Did It!!!

We earned our first Gumball Goal! As a class we choose a goal we would like to work toward. Every time our class is "on the ball," whether it be in the classroom, hallways, or at resource we receive a gumball on our chart. When the jar is full...we get our reward! Well, it took us some time, but we earned our Show-and-Tell Party. We heard about one of our classmates being a descendant of Abraham Lincoln, saw one classmate's dedication to creating a huge collection of sharks' teeth, got a close-up look at fishing poles, and even saw a stuffed monkey that helps a friend with her homework! Check out a picture of us reaping the benefits of our "on the ball" behavior. Stay tuned to see if we earn our next goal!!!

Our Trip to MOSH

Our trip to the Museum of Science and History

was quite an adventure!

We were able to view a show in the planetarium...which directly related to our previous study of the Solar System. We felt so vary smart hearing things we knew to be true, and even learned some more information about our Universe. Then it was off to the lab where we learned about energy. Check out energy at work on a bike! Man that looks tough! We were almost out of time, but before we hopped on the bus we checked out the Animal Grossology exhibit. There were some pretty interesting videos and books to check out. They were unappetizing to say the least! You know what wasn't unappetizing??? US!!! Look out!!!

We're Charged Up About Science!

How does an object react when touched by a charged balloon? That's what we wanted to find out today in science! We started by rubbing balloons on our hair or clothes to charge them, and then tried holding them near or against various objects including paper pieces, glitter, a chair, a classmates hair, and another balloon. Check out some of our results! What did you think of the experiment? Many of you had further investigations you wanted to try at home...did anyone carry out an additional experiment?!? Share your results with us!

A Symphony of Smiles!

We took our first field trip of the year to see the Jacksonville Symphony in action! Dressed in our finest attire, we headed downtown! What we thought would be a relaxing hour of musical enjoyment, turned out to be a hunt for a tuba-stealing bandit! We traveled the world as the Symphony played the music of composers such as Mozart and Rossini. With our help, the culprit was apprehended and the tuba returned to a grateful member of the orchestra. Did you have fun on the trip? To learn more about the composers mentioned, click here.

A New Ring for Saturn?!?

Saturn is a planet many miles away,
A new ring was discovered to exist there today.
Taken by telescope a new image appears,
Something like this has not been seen in years!
The ring is gigantic, 7 million miles wide,
They say over 1 billion Earths fit inside!
The ring is way cold, so jackets are a must,
Too bad the ring is just ice and space dust.
Look at this artist's depiction, whatcha think?
To read more about it, click on this link!

This artist's rendering released by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

shows the biggest but never-before-seen ring around Saturn, spotted by

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The inset shows an enlarged image

of Saturn, as seen by the W.M. Keck Observatory at Mauna Kea, Hawaii,

in infrared light. The bulk of the ring material starts about 3.7 million

miles away from the planet and extends outward roughly

another 7.4 million miles.

Here Comes the Sun...dah, dah, dah, dah!!!

How does the movement of the Earth affect the position of the Sun? That's the focus question we have been trying to answer in class! It is , however, not our only question. Is the Sun moving from one side of Jacksonville to the other? Does the Sun rise out of the ocean? Why does the length of day vary? We are on the case! We began our study by acting out the rotation and revolution of the Earth as it moves on its orbit. Our next step was to create models of the Earth on its axis to help us better understand the tilt and rotation/revolution around the Sun. We watched a simulation of the Earth's movement at this website. Now we were beginning to understand! Next we turned our focus to the hours of daylight on a given day. Each Tuesday and Thursday we chart when the sun rises and sets, and then calculate the total hours of daylight. You can find this information at home by clicking here! So that's where we are right now...how do you think things are going? What have you learned so far? What are you still curious about?!?

You'll Be Signing Up for Tours, Once You Read Our Brochures!

Hop onboard for a trip that's out of this world! Take a trip to Mercury
where the drastic change in temperature allows you to bake cookies with no oven during the day and make popsicles with no freezer at night! Or how about a little vacay on Venus, named after the goddess of love? Stick around on old, faithful Earth and breathe in the only fresh air in the Solar System or jet off to Mars and climb the tallest volcano known to man! Are you a daredevil? Visit Jupiter's Red Spot, a hurricane bigger than the Earth! Perhaps you prefer something a little more relaxing? Well, slip over to Saturn and kick back while you admire its 10,000 rings! Tired of the same old rotation of the Earth? On Uranus you will experience a sideways rotation found on no other planet!!! Schedule a trip to Neptune and knock years off your age...really! One year on Neptune is 165 Earth years! Too busy to exercise? Lift off to Pluto where a 100 pound person only weighs 8 pounds...no cardio necessary! This information and more, can be found in a planet brochure!

New Space Discoveries!

If we've learned anything during our study of the Solar System, it's that things are always changing. The Universe is expanding, Pluto is now a dwarf planet, and just this week a new Earth-like planet has been discovered just a mere 500 light years away! That's only about 3000 trillion miles...road trip anyone?!? Scientists have already discovered over 300 planets outside our solar system, but this is the first that has not been a gas ball and can be proven to be solid! Unfortunately, it's a little too close to the star it circles keeping the average surface temperature at about 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit. That's about 1000 times hotter than the oven when you bake chocolate chip cookies...needless to say no life exists on this new planet, Corot-7b. To read the full article about this exciting new discovery click here.

But wait, that's not the only new discovery! Scientists have found the coldest spot in our solar system, and it's right in our own backyard, on the moon! The spot lies deep within a crater on the moon's south pole and measures temperatures as low as -397 degrees Fahrenheit. It's at least a degree cooler than Pluto, even though Pluto is 40 times farther from the sun! For more information click here.

The Universe is an amazing thing! Let me know what you think of these new discoveries!

Horray for Arrays!

It's a wonderful day for arrays! We've cut them, we've labeled them, and now we are playing games with them! Array cards are an awesome visual representation of multiplication pairs. Over the next few days we will be playing a variety of games with our array cards that will ultimately help us become more familiar with multiplication and division facts! For more information about array cards and the games we are playing click here. Take your cards home! Play the games with your family! Who knew a tiny rectangular piece of paper could lead to so many good times and so

much learning?!?

Is the Moon Made of Cheese?

No, my friends, the moon is not made of cheese. But what if the Solar System was edible? What would the planets be made of? Our class spent some time this week imagining that the Solar System was edible. During our Edible Solar System Lab, we studied various delicious items and formed a hypothesis about which item represented which planet in our solar system. Items used included: 2 cherries, 2 apples, a cantoloupe, a watermelon, a raspberry, and a pea. Of course these items come nowhere close to the actual size of the planets, but for our experiment's purposes, they provided an accurate model for comparison. Turns out, comparing the planets to fruit can be tricky! Take a look at our final and accurate matchings of edible items to planets. Be sure to notice Mercury, it's the barely noticeable pea on the far left side of the photo. Does anything surprise you?

Let me know!

Attention Shuttle Commanders

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Are you curious about the distance between each planet? Are you having a hard time comprehending the vastness, of the dimensions, of the universe? Then this take-home lab is for you...This is your mission, should you choose to accept it. Obtain the following document. Read the directions carefully. Enjoy your journey through space!!! Don't forget to return your observation notes to mission control (our classroom). If you do so by Monday, September 14, you will be eligible for 5 success tickets!!!

Preparing for Launch!

It's hard to believe the first week of school is behind us! We've gotten all of that diagnostic testing out of the way and are now ready to dive into the depths of space and blast into math! Check out the games and sites available in Science Rocks! and Math is Cool! These are a great way to reinforce what we are learning in class, while having fun at the same time! Let me know what you think of the games!

Welcome to Fourth Grade!

Welcome to our new class blog! I am so looking forward to meeting each and every one of you! We have a fabulous year ahead of us as we "Orchestrate a Symphony of Success."

Orchestrating a Symphony of Student Success