Rocks, Water, and MONEY! :o)

This week in concepts, we have been learning about Earth Materials. This is the unit I am planning for my IWS (Internship Work Sample) that I will turn into Winthrop for a grade. I am trying to plan fun, hands-on activities that the kids will love. So far, we have learned about the properties of water and how people use water. Below are some pictures from our "water stations" that we had on Wednesday.

Lillie investigating how water feels.



Benji pouring the water onto the pan which then flowed "downhill".

This group is observing how water takes the shape of the container in which it is in.

We also started to talk about rocks and their properties on Friday. The students were given three different types of rocks and the opportunity to observe their rocks for a few minutes with a magnifying lens. The students LOVED this!

D'Andre observing the rocks.

Peyton holding up one of his rocks.

Christopher getting a close-up of his rock.

Destiny studying her rock.

Lily using the magnifying lens to get a closer look at her rock.

After we studied our rocks for a few minutes, I instructed the students to begin to rub their rocks together, starting with two rocks that were the same. The students began furiously rubbing their rocks together and noticed that more "rock dust" came off of the lighter rock (tuff) than the dark (basalt) rock. I explained that this is because the basalt, or the dark rock, is harder than the tuff, or white rock. We will continue talking about characteristics of rocks next week and how we can sort them.

Jenna rubbing rocks together to see the rock dust.

Will rubbing rocks together.

Look at all of the rock dust Gracie has on her paper!

This week we also began our math unit on money. We asked parents to send in a few coins for the students to use as we worked through this unit. The students responded really well to working with real money. This allows them to make connections from what they are learning to real life and it makes it more relevant and meaningful for them. One activity this week that the kids loved was the "Money Cube Toss." One of the other teachers generously made the game pieces (cubes) for us to use. On the cube are pictures of coins along with one side saying "lose a turn" while another side states "role again." The object of the game is for the students to pass the cube around their table and roll so they can graph the coin they land on. This allows them to strengthen their identification of coins quickly. You can see the kids playing the game below.

-Until next week....Mrs. Miskelly :o)