How Come ?? Stories and Jill

We have a new twist on our usual Stories With Holes this year. Our GT kids absolutely love Stories with Holes and if you are not familiar with them, they are a series of Stories, by Nathan Levy, with a unexpected outcome. Students try to guess the outcome by only answering yes or no questions.
Besides the students loving to participate, Stories with Holes offer:

• growth in imagination 
• divergent thinking
• cooperative problem solving
• change of pace from task oriented environment
• we especially like them at CSI as they encourage "good question asking" ability!

An example: Tim loves his work. He spends all day making faces, but nobody thinks he's very funny.
                       WHY?

Student question: Is Tim a clown?
Teacher: No
Student question: Does Tim make mean faces?
Teacher: No
Student question: Does Tim make faces at his job? *** (great question!)
Teacher: Yes
The dialogue continues.....
Student question: Is the "face" a face besides his own?
Teacher:  Yes
Finally one student will think they know the solution and stand and share:
Student solution: Does Tim make clocks?

It is always a celebration when we are able to solve a Story. This year, my teacher partner, Mrs. Oertli, mentioned a book which she had shared with her family several years ago. The book was titled, "How Come" and pre-dates Nathan Levy's work. This book is out of print, but has the same types of question - answer stories that our students crave. Best of all, four of our students wrote their own "How Come" question and answer book and brought it to CSI this week.

Hanna, Lily, Moriah and Ryan sharing "How Come"

I think Colton J. may have helped out a bit, too! Thanks for the great book and the dedication was especially nice for me and Mrs. Oertli.

Jill:
An Amazing All About Me Presentation. Jill shared her knowledge of dog and cat rescue. She named each of her animals and how she got them. She also has donkeys and horses. One student asked her how she took care of so many animals and she explained that her brothers, sisters and parents all take turns with chores. Thank you Jill, for sharing your experiences with us!

Jill sharing her knowledge of dog and cat rescue!

2012 Science Challenge

I found a great site which offers a contest to the best innovative design. We entered the challenge two years ago and the scientists designed a game that could be played on Mars. They had to learn all about Mars: its gravity, red soil, atmosphere..etc.. and take those factors in to consideration when creating their idea.


The challenge we accepted this year is called Animal Smarts. The students were challenged to design a toy or game that would enhance the life of a zoo animal or pet which was suited to that animal's particular intelligence. Students chose an animal and watched videos of the animal in its habitat or "playing". This gave them ideas for a toy or game to design for that animal.

Kids Science Challenge is funded by the National Science Foundation. I like it because the website gives great background for each of the projects. They supply video and activities that can be used to help understand the challenge. The students don't actually have to make the design, just explain and diagram their ideas on paper.
We have some great ideas and we are sending them in next week.

One of our activities that we completed with the unit was to test our short term memory. We compared our short term memory to that of a chimp by trying to remember the order of digits from 1 - 9 after seeing them for a short time.

4th Grade Energy Field Trip: Fayette Power Plant

After studying energy and taking a virtual tour of the Xcel Energy Plant, we toured our own Fayette Power Plant.









The folks at the Power Plant always welcome us in to show us a video about the plant.











The temperature was 36º F with a wind chill of 26º! The bus tour was awesome. Mr. Russ, who specializes in environmental work at the plant, led the tour.
A few photos of the tour:

PUMPS THAT TRANSFER WATER FROM THE LAKE
TO THE PLANT











THE PRECIPITATOR HELPS CLEAN THE AIR RELEASED FROM THE STACKS

THE BOILER











THE STACK
















BUS TOUR!
I remember one awesome student question, although there were many, " Who owns the power plant? How do they make their money?" Yes, at 10, very financially minded! Alldyn, was that you?















WHERE THE CRUSHED COAL IS GROUND TO POWDER














COAL
CONVEYOR BELT



COOL FACTS ABOUT OUR FAYETTE POWER PLANT:
The lake was built for the power plant. The water from the lake cools the equipment.
Good bass fishing in the lake.
The water is 68° going to the power plant, and 88° when it is released back into the lake.
The boiler is 400 feet tall.
The coal at Fayette Power plant comes from Powder River Basin in Wyoming.

Here is a math question for you. Can you solve it?
There are 150 - 120 tons of coal in each train car. There are 130 cars per train. Coal costs $1.25 per ton. What is the total cost of the trail load of coal??


Fayette Power Plant burns about 1000 tons an hour! They are open 24 hours, remember!

Solar Ovens and Smores!

After three rainy Tuesdays we had a sunny day to cook in our pizza box solar ovens. The temperature outside was cool but the Smores turned out great!


First we had to make them. We used graham crackers, Hershey's Chocolate, and marshmallows in the middle. We wrapped them in aluminum foil and put them in our ovens.






We measured the temperature about every 30 minutes and logged the information in our journals.

I wondered about the success. Many of the ovens got up to 140 degrees F! The outside temperature was about 70 degrees F.







While we were waiting for the Smores to cook, we took a virtual tour of the ExCel energy power plant and learned how they make coal into electricity. This virtual tour will be like our field trip next week to Fayette Power Plant in La Grange.



We also continued to work on our projects using Museum Box. This is a cool Web 2.0 project where the students create their own "museum shadow box" display online. They are researching and making a display about an invention and how it changed our world. We can't wait to see the finished projects.

Of course the best thing about our Smores was eating them!

4th Grade Rainy Day Solar Ovens!

One of the favorite days at 4th Grade CSI is to cook in the solar ovens. We are anxiously awaiting our next sunny day so we can cook Smores in our solar oven Pizza boxes. Today was a rainy day so we spent our time making the ovens. We will cook in them as soon as it is sunny!

Emma started our day with All About Me and shared her love of reading! She has won many awards for being the top reader in her class for several years. Go Emma! Keep up the great love of reading!



STEPS TO MAKE A SOLAR OVEN:
Materials:
Pizza Box (recycled is best)
Scissors
Plastic Wrap
Aluminum Foil
Masking Tape
Black Construction Paper
Ruler

1. First, trace a line about one inch around the top of the pizza box on three sides. Don't cut the side by the flap that closes.






















2. Second, glue aluminum foil to the bottom of the flap. Trim the aluminum foil so that it fits evenly to the flap.


















3. Third, tightly tape plastic wrap to the underside of the open "window". Tape near the cut out so the plastic wrap is stretched tight over the opening.















4. Glue aluminum foil to the inside bottom of the pizza box.






















5. Glue Black construction paper on top of the aluminum foil.






6. Now your oven is ready for cooking.