Halloween Party!

Mrs. Jay read us a fun Halloween story!

Every year my class has a big Halloween party. We each bring a ziploc of a yummy snack to share. We have parent volunteers who brew us our yummy snack filled with everyone's special ingredient. Even the parents loved eating the snack. It is a mixture of sweet, salty, and healthy. While the snack is being brewed, our loved ones read us fun Halloween/Fall stories. We always enjoy listening to our parents, grandparents, and cousins reading our class stories. Thank you to everyone who came to our celebration. It was a blast!

Enjoying our yummy Halloween snack!

We're adding a new pumpkin to our patch!

On October 30th, first and second grade received some exciting news. The students came back from recess and had a special card on their desk. They were thrilled to have something special on their desk waiting for them. I let the kids read the cards to themselves and then we read them together. The card said, "We're adding a new pumpkin to our classroom patch!" On the inside it said, "Mrs. Muller is going to be a Mummy! April 2016." One student shouted out, "I knew it!"  They were all very excited. Many understood that I have a little baby in my tummy and a few thought I was going to be a mummy for Halloween. It was very cute.

For our Halloween assembly, each class had to decorate a pumpkin for a contest. We decorated our pumpkin by making it a baby. We added all our names and drawings of ourselves around the pumpkin to show that we are adding a new pumpkin to our classroom. It was a great way to share the news with the rest of the school.

The inside said, "Mrs. Muller is going to be a MUMMY!"

There surprise cards for when they arrived after recess. 

Technology Class!

We started working with Mr. and Mrs. Kellogg (Bella's grandparents) learning about circuits.  We started our first class learning the difference between electronics and electrical. Students were amazed by what a circuit looked like and that they were going to be learning how to build circuits just like the ones that are in most of their toys. Marissa and Brandon got to build the dog robot for the class. The class loved watching that once it was correctly programmed, it could do many fun things. I cannot wait for them to go to their next technology class to learn more about circuits.

Let's learn about MEASUREMENT!

First grade had a blast during this fun math lesson. We have been learning in math about measurement using non-standard measurement. We discussed that we can measure the length, width, and height of anything around us. First grade chose 5 items in our classroom that they wanted to measure using unfix cubes, paper clips, blocks, links, and base ten blocks. They had such a blast going around to the different measurement stations to measure their item using their non-standard measuring tool. They learned that no matter what measuring tool they used, the outcome of which item was the longest or shortest was the same. I cannot wait until we continue learning about measurement using standard measurement.

Improving our play dough process...

On Thursday we began our play dough process. Students reviewed their rubrics and scoring sheets to decide if their play dough is high quality or low quality. We reviewed the ingredients that we would use to make the play dough and what measurements we decided to use.  Students were very eager to get their hands on mixing these ingredients together.

At the end of the activity, about a quarter of the students made high quality play dough, a quarter made okay quality play dough, and the last half made low quality play dough. Students were shocked to see their first attempt fail. We went over the engineering design process and I explained to them that this happens often to engineers and that it doesn't stop them from trying again. We reviewed the improve step and as a class came up with some ideas of how we would improve our process. Many students came up with using less water, or more flour, or even using a different order of mixing the ingredients.

On Friday we started our activity out by discussing the changes we wanted to make in our process. We reviewed the ingredients and amounts students decided to use.  As students were making their improved play dough, I saw more smiles and lots of excitement. Many came to me with a smile from ear to ear saying, "I HAVE HIGH QUALITY PLAY DOUGH!" They were so impressed by their ability to change the ingredients and process to make good play dough.

After we created our play dough, we went back to our working station to review our play dough texture and usage test rubric. Students used their rubrics to give them a final score on their improved play dough. We had a blast doing this activity and many of the students said they wanted to go home and make an even better play dough and add color to it.

Overall, we learned about the job of a chemical engineer and using the engineering design process to create something and improve it. I cannot wait to introduce the class to their next Engineering is Elementary unit. It will be fun to see them use what they learned from this process and apply it to their next challenge.

THURSDAY PLAY DOUGH PROCESS

Brandon and Calla were sad their first attempt didn't work.

FRIDAY PLAY DOUGH DESIGN

Who doesn't like to play with good play dough?

First and second grade began a new engineering unit from the our curriculum, Engineering is Elementary. Our unit is called, "A Play Dough Process." In this series of lessons students learn about chemical engineers through a story called, "Michelle's MVP Award." The little girl in the story wants to create play dough to sell as a fundraiser and her whole hokey team is going to help make it. She works with her uncle Adam to develop a process for making play dough. Through this story the students learn about uncle Adam who is a chemical engineer and what his job as a chemical engineer is. They also learn about the engineering design process and that sometimes the process doesn't always work and we have to go back and improve our process. At the end of this unit students will use what they know about solids and liquids to develop their own play dough process.

We experimented with high quality play dough today to see what good play dough feels like. Students enjoyed rolling it, building figures, and  cutting out shapes. We discussed the properties of what good play dough texture is and what we expect out of the play dough we create. We also created  a testing rubrics with scores 3, 2, 1. Students will use this rubric to test their play dough texture when they make it. We also decided we need to test our play dough in one more way. Students wanted to make sure they could use their play dough with a cookie cutter so, we created another rubric called the usage test. In this test students will score their play dough with at 3, 2, 1 depending on how well their play dough cut out a shape.

3 = high quality play dough
2= okay quality play dough
1 = low quality play dough

Students are very eager to begin their own journey as chemical engineers and to improve our own play dough process. This should be an exciting experiment for them!