Earlier this week the students and I decided to begin working on Phase 2 for our Project Rocket Ship. Phase 2 involves adding pencils to the outsides of the rockets to act as stabilizers. The students began by cutting packing tape and trying to tape the pencils onto the sides of each of the rockets. They realized that it was extremely difficult trying to stick the pencils on by themselves, so they began asking each other for help and working together in groups of two. As the project progressed, we all came to the conclusion that the packing tape was not working. It wasn't allowing the pencils to stay on the sides of the ships. The kids thought we should try to use a different kind of tape, so we also gave scotch tape a try. After everyone made several attempts to make the new tape work, the students found that the same issues were happening with the scotch tape. As a group, the students and I concluded that we should wait to try again until we had a stronger kind of tape to work with. All of this trial and error work made me think about a book we read regularly at school called 11 Experiments That Failed by Jenny Offill. The book is about a little girl who tries 11 various experiments that never work out quite right, but she logs the results of every single one regardless of the outcome. The children and I talked about the value of trial and error and how finding out that an experiment (or anything else for that matter) didn't have the results you were hoping for can still teach you information you didn't know before and help you get closer to the right results the next time. After this discussion some of the students that started the process of Phase 2 decided they wanted to tell me their interpretations of what happened just like the main character in the experiment book. Please enjoy the pictures and the interpretations of the results from some of the students of our first attempt at Phase 2.
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This past week my friends began the first phase of Project Rocket Ship. Thanks to the fantastic donations from families, every student will be able to decorate a plastic bottle and turn it into his or her very own rocket. This week it has been all about the children transforming their bottles into what they think a rocket ship should look like. Some of my friends used paint, while others chose a different medium, like sharpies. A few of our rocket ships have items glued to them, and Solen decided to make an imprint of his rocket on paper before deciding it was finished. Some students decided to cover the whole bottle with decorations, while others chose to keep the additions to a minimum. Allowing each child to use his or her creativity and imagination in whatever way he or she saw fit to create the ideal rocket ship has been an incredible process to observe. I had no idea that the finished products would end up looking so different from one another. It's as if every student imprinted a tiny part of his or her personality into the artwork and the individuality can't help but shine through. Last week some of my friends decided they wanted to have the pictures of nebulas and supernovas we've been looking at and discussing hung up around the classroom like our planets. A few of them volunteered to help label them so we could tell the difference between which pictures were nebulas and which were supernovas. While labeling the pictures, Eve helped Felix write the word supernova by showing him how to draw the letters he wasn't sure how to make. Andrew helped us remember the difference between a supernova and a nebula. "This is where stars get born in the gases." - Andrew. Ada did an amazing job labeling her supernova and was so excited about writing that she began writing the whole alphabet while singing it to herself. Keep a lookout for our labeled photographs while hanging out in the classroom!
Earlier this week we began talking about where stars come from and how they are made. My friends thought supernovas were really neat and loved the colors they create in space. But, what they were really impressed by were the nebulas. They couldn't believe that stars could come from these giants plumes of gases. And we found the shapes of the nebulas so interesting! Then Felix had an amazing idea..."What if we make our own nebulas? We could use the play dough to make the shapes!" So we got to work! Some friends chose to use the playdough to make their own interpretations of supernovas as well. I loved watching them process and absorb information about stars and the universe through this new way of exploring this topic. We also decided to make our own pictures of the supernovas with paint. We found while making this pictures that it was really hard to capture the same colors that are found in the universe, but we did our best! And the Steppers Supernovas came out beautifully! We were also really curious about what would happen if we painted the black galaxy playdough to try to make it look like that was the supernova or nebula. Be on the lookout for the outcome of that artistic interpretation of the stars!
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AuthorHi there! My name is Dawn Irwin and I've been a teacher here at Stepping Stones since August 2011. I love our school, I am passionate about our approach to learning, and am proud of all of our students for all that they accomplish each and every day! Archives
August 2017
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