Mrs. Gault's Class : October 2015

Friday, October 30, 2015

Layers of the Atmosphere

Today in class we did an expirerment about the layers of the atmosphere. First we put dirt in a cup to reapresent the earth. Then we put in honey to be the troposphere. Next, we put in corn syrup to be the stratosphere. After that we put in dish soap to be the mesosphere. After that, we put in water to the thermosphere. Last we put in veggie oil to be the exosphere. By: Breanna Hensley

Saturday, October 24, 2015

Butterfly Effect-Spreading Kindness WorldWide

Since the beginning of the school year students have been learning all about kindness within our PBL. We have also been reading the novel Wonder by R.J. Palacio as our mentor text, the main character in the novel (Auggie) was born with a facial deformity that prevented him from going to school and enjoying the normal day to day activities in life until now. This novel takes us on a journey with Auggie as he enters 5th grade at Beecher Prep as the new kid.

As our culminating assessment, students are creating a webpage to teach family and friends about the organization, CCA, which helps children with cranio-facial deformities just like Auggie from the novel. We are currently finishing up our scripts and practicing so our class can decide which group of students can perform their script to put on our website. Our class will be creating a video on- What is this disease?

Students will be finalizing scripts and videos this week so stay tuned to see which video will make it on our OES Spread Kindness Blog. Also, please go to the blog listed below and sign the pledge to choose kindness and make a donation to the CCA organization. Students have been creating origami butterflies in Art the past 2 weeks so if you donate to the organization we will hang a butterfly in our school in honor of your donation.

Watch a video about the butterfly effect: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/proving-the-butterfly-effect-with-a-single-act-of-kindness/

Learn more about CCA here: http://www.ccakids.com/wonder.html

Check out our OES Spread Kindness Blog: http://spreadkindnessoes.blogspot.com/

Wind Powered Cars STEM challenge

Students were engineers on Wednesday and Thursday last week as they were told to construct a wind powered car out of certain materials. Students went to the Wonder room and bought the materials they needed and used teamwork to construct the cars that they believed would withstand the wind when the time came. Before students could do anything they had to collaborate with their group and draw a design of their car so when we went to the room students knew exactly what materials they needed.

Students designed their cars and tested them, only ONE student made a car that moved when the fan hit it and it moved in a straight line! Way to go Jeresa! Students were baffled as to why they FAILED the design. They went back to do their redesign, communicating with their teammates about what they could change they all came up with making their cars lighter. So all students redesigned their cars and we went back to retest the next day, all cars didn't move after the redesign but most of them did! Students went back to the classroom and reflected on what they learned during this activity, one important component to this activity was having perseverance, without perseverance many of the cars would never leave the ground.

Student Led Conferences

I really enjoyed sitting down and talking with you and your child last week. I really believe the students enjoyed looking at their grades and discussing their weaknesses and strengths with their parents. Thank you all for coming to make this possible!

Friday, October 9, 2015

Face Time with Chris Justus

To go with our weather unit the entire 4th grade spoke with Chris Justus from WYFF. He showed us all around the news station and answered many questions from the students.

Students took notes and when we went back we watched the live forecast on the computer. Thank you so much for making this opportunity happen Mr. Justus!