Zoomers!

We have completed our Science unit on Balance and are focusing on motion.  These past two weeks have had us creating all sorts of contraptions to study the motion of spinning.

Our first creation was a top.  We built tops out of green straws, small yellow disks, and large red disks.  We discovered that our tops were more balanced and spun longer when we used the center holes and not the side holes.  We also learned that heavier tops spin longer and that the weight has to be low on the green shaft.

Then we used store-bought tops that had markers on their shafts!  We spun the tops on a large piece of paper and observed what motion the tops made as it spun.  We realized that spinning is moving in a circular motion!

Yesterday we made new spinning objects.  We made zoomers!  A zoomer used a long piece of string and one of our large red  disks.  By putting our thumbs into the looped string, we could make our zoomers spin - and keep spinning!  We then made more zoomers using cardboard disks and took them home to keep practicing our zooming!

We found the zoomers much more frustrating than the tops - but we know that as scientists, things will be frustrating sometimes!  With some practice at home, hopefully we'll all be zooming soon.

Talk to your child about the motion of spinning.  What spins in our world?  Why does it spin?  What does the spinning motion look like?  Reinforcing the idea that these science concepts are always all around us is a great way to make sure your child understands why we're learning what we're learning.  Science class these past few days has sure looked like a lot of fun, but we certainly are learning a lot too!

Field Trip

Whew!  Yesterday was a  whirl-wind of a day full of exciting sights in the city!

As researchers about New York City, we have been reading lots of books, looking at lots of pictures, and thinking about our own experiences.  Some of the things we've been writing about, though, are things some of us have never seen!  We wanted some first-hand experiences to really build our writing - it's hard to add details if we've never seen what we're writing about.

Half of the second graders are writing about forms of transportation found in New York City.  The other half of the second graders are writing about man-made features of the city (bridges, buildings, statues, etc.).  The students got to choose which group to work in based on their interests.  Both groups of researchers learned a lot for their books!

- The first part of our journey involved walking through the East Village.  We observed other people walking, people on bikes, people in cars, people in taxis, buses full of people, and even a motorcycle.
- Next, we went down into the MTA Subway system.  We took two trains - first the L train and then the 5 train.  We used our five senses to gather lots of information and took lots of notes in our reporter's notebooks as we traveled.
- Then, we exited the train at Bowling Green and walked into Battery Park.  Researchers on statues, boats, buildings, and the Statue of Liberty were ready to observe now!  We saw lots of boats - police boats with lights flashing, boats full of tourists ready to climb up the green lady, yellow taxi boats taking people around the five boroughs, sail boats out for a nice sail, and lots of other cruise boats for people wanting to see the city in a new way.  We also saw lots of statues within the park - some were monuments to the 9/11 tragedy, some were statues of people, others were in memory of soldiers who lost their lives.  Of course, we also finally saw the big statue - the Statue of Liberty!  Even from the park we could see that construction on Liberty Island was going on, the trees had lost their leaves, and that the large flag on the island was flying high.  Lots of observations about the statue were written down as we noticed lots of new things about the statue we had read so much about.
- After that came lunch time.  While it wasn't a topic for our all-about books, we certainly learned, quickly, how hungry the birds along the water must be!  Lots of seagulls and pigeons flew and hopped around us, hoping for a bite of our food!
- Next, we walked to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal to take the boat.  We observed the terminal and noticed how similar it was to the airports many of us have experienced.  Then it was time for the boat ride!
- On the boat we got really close to the Statue of Liberty!  We saw the Brooklyn Bridge, the Manhattan Bridge, and the Verrazano Bridge!  We noticed how different each of the bridges were from one another, yet their accomplished the same thing.  We took lots of notes about the boats we saw, the tall buildings in the Financial District we could now see from the distance, and the bridges we went past.
- After docking at Staten Island, it was time to turn around and come back.  This time we stood outside on the boat - we got quite wet, and it was very cold, but it was also lots of fun!  Then we traveled back to school on both the R train and the L train.  We even got a song sung for us on the R train.  We clapped along as musicians sang and played underground  What fun!

It was quite the long day, and by the time we got back to school we were tired, wet, and hungry.  We had snack, talked a bit about our day, and had some quiet time before leaving at 3:00.

....

Today, in the writing workshop, the notebooks flew open and the research we had gathered began to enter our drafts.  We crossed out things, added new facts, changed our wording, and adding describing words to make our writing clearer for our readers and stronger as a piece of non-fiction.  It was a great day yesterday and our "All-About" New York City books will be the proof!

Our Big Book is Published!

We published our big book "All About Parks!" and have been sharing it around EVCS! (Click here to see the planning and drafting of our book)

Now we're researching our own topics about things in New York City to publish our own books - some of us are researching modes of transportation, some the Brooklyn Bridge, others the Empire State Building, and other kids are researching tunnels, buildings, and other bridges found in our city.

Check out our big book!

All About Parks

(The cover was removed because all of our names were on the front.
You'll have to visit to check it out!)

The Table of Contents, featuring our four chapters:

Chapter 1: Animals We See in Parks:

Chapter 2: Bugs and Nature You See in Parks:

Chapter 3: People in the Parks

Chapter 4: Things We Use in the Park

The Pencil Trick!

We continue to learn about balance in our science class.  We learned a very cool pencil trick - using just aluminum wire and clothes pins, we figured out how to make our pencils stand up on point!

We explored and discovered how it worked - by putting the counterweights under the balance point, we made the pencil stand up!  We have learned a lot about balance this year already, and will be finishing our unit next week.  When you come in for Parent-Teacher conferences, you'll see our mobiles that we built to learn more about balance!