Yes, we have no satellites

Here's a leftover from the school year...

During that last week, I had the kids work in pairs on planetary research projects. They had a bunch of books to look through to find pictures and interesting facts, then each group created a big poster for their planet.

This is what I got from one of the Venus groups:


When I asked why they had included a picture of a satellite, they told me, "It's to show that there is no satellite around Venus."

I then asked why they had not included a picture of a unicorn or Justin Beiber to show that Venus also does not have either of THOSE things orbiting around it, but the irony was lost on them.

Free comic book day!

Today is Free Comic Book Day, and I learned this week that the Lone Star Comics near my school is not only giving away a free comic book to everyone who shows up, but that they are also donating $250 worth of graphic novels to the library of the school that has the most students show up. So I was promoting the event big time with my two classes.

Ed U Cater and I are going to see Thor later this evening, and we are going to stop by Lone Star as well. I have never taken advantage of Free Comic Book Day, AND maybe we can convince the good folks there to count teachers as 10 students for the giveaway...


This week was a heck of a lot better than last week (last week of course being the TAKS Week That Time Stood Still), but it was still kind of slow. It really is amazing how having lesson plans with TOO MUCH to cover -- while more stressful -- does make the day go by a lot quicker. As opposed to this week, where I didn't have much planned, and there was a lot less structure.

The only things really on my lesson plan this past week were "4th grade fractions" and science projects. 4th grade fractions go beyond what the kids needed to know for the 3rd grade test. So this week, I taught them how to add and subtract fractions, how to compare two fractions to see which is larger (my apologies to people who hate the butterfly method), and how to find fractions of actual numbers like 2/5 of 30.

The kids devoured these lessons and pretty much conquered them with ease. Even my struggling kids nearly aced the homeworks and the test. Maybe I should have been calling EVERYTHING "Fourth grade" this year!!

Science projects are underway, and it's been a bit of a challenge to get the kids to understand what it means to have a "testable" question. No, you can't just build a model of a volcano. No, you can't just draw a picture of the solar system.

Most of the groups have come up with pretty good ideas, but more than a few have been delinquent in bringing in necessary supplies. So only about 3 groups have actually begun the experiment portion of their projects.

Next week -- finishing up the science projects, and "4th grade multiplication" -- 2-digit X 2-digit. That should prove somewhat more challenging than the fractions.

Will it fly?

Thank Goodness It's Thursday!! The science fair projects have been turned in, the learning walk is over, and Lost comes on in a couple of minutes.

Speaking of the science projects, my afternoon class tackled the problem of Will a Paper Airplane Fly Farther with a Paper Clip or without? We spent days making a hypothesis, coming up with a list of materials, going over the steps of the procedure, and making our data table. Oh yeah, and making quite a few paper airplanes as well. Several times when I asked kids for their hypothesis, I had to gently remind them to include the word "farther" because they kept telling me that they thought a paper airplane would fly with a paper clip. Yeah, it will fly without one too, but we're trying to see which will go FARTHER.

Then came actually performing the experiment. The procedure included standing behind a line on the floor, tossing the paper airplane, and then measuring the distance from the line on the floor to the spot where the airplane landed. Of course, much like their large steel counterparts, paper airplanes tend to skid along the floor after they land. Since we wanted the distance that the paper airplane actually FLEW, it was necessary to quickly mark the spot where the airplane first hit the ground.

Each time we threw the paper airplane, I asked a different child to tell us where the plane had landed by stepping on that spot. Then two other kids would get to use the tape measure to see the distance between the starting spot and that child's foot. I soon found myself doing my own science experiment inside my head -- What Is the Average Distance between the Spot Where the Airplane Actually Landed and Where the Child Puts His/Her Foot?

I figure the answer was about a foot and a half.

At any rate, it's finally over, like I said. Judging is tomorrow, so we'll see how the kids did. At least I know they did better than that second grade project titled Which Tastes Better -- Dog Food or Cat Food?

What an incredible smell you've discovered!

Continuing in my attempt to wrap up the actual PROJECT part of the kids' science projects before TAKS, three of my boys did their experiment today -- "Can you identify an object by its smell?"

To give them their due, these boys had brought in their materials several weeks ago. That fact will come into play later.

The project involves bringing in an unsuspecting test subject, blindfolding him or her, and then holding objects in front of that person's nose and asking them to identify the object by its smell.

The items that they chose to use were:

a bag of Hot Cheetos
a dirty sock
an old tennis shoe
a lime
a small thermos filled with strawberry milk

Sitting in my room for two weeks didn't much affect the cheetos, the sock, the shoe, or the lime. However, it didn't do too much good for the strawberry milk.

We wound up pretty much reenacting that old Saturday Night Live skit where one guy says, "YUUCCCKKKKKK!! This milk is rancid!!!" And his buddy says, "EWWWWW... Let me try!!"

All of the kids had to smell the milk, whether they were involved with the project or not. I even watched as one kid recoiled in disgust and then 30 seconds later shouted, "let me smell that again!"

And to answer the question that I know you're curious about:

Of COURSE I smelled the milk myself...

If a third grader falls in the forest...

Earlier this week, all of the kids in my homeroom helped out with one of the group's science projects. The project was titled, "Can you tell where sound is coming from if you're blindfolded?"

(Their original title was "Can you hear a sound when you're blindfolded?" but I convinced them that trying to pinpoint the direction might be a better idea."

The experiment involves having one person stand in the center of the room, wearing a blindfold, while one member of the experimenting group moved somewhere else in the room and tapped on a book's cover with a pencil. The blindfolded person was then supposed to point in the direction they thought the sound was coming from.

So I went first. I put the blindfold (an old headband really) over my eyes in the center of the room, and when I heard the tapping, I pointed to where I felt I was coming from. I was relieved to hear the boy say, "Yes."

Then one at a time, the other 14 kids not performing the experiment were blindfolded and subjected to the same rigor. One at a time, they all pointed in the correct direction.

Then the three kids who are doing the project took their turns. And one by one, all three of them pointed in the wrong direction when the tapping began. I'm not sure if they were just REALLY disappointed that no one had gotten it wrong so far and they wanted to spice up the data, or if they just have really poor hearing. But I think we can rest assured, if the world ever sees true superheroes, Daredevil will not be coming from this group of three...

Volcano!!

Over the weekend, I asked my kids to start thinking about ideas for a science project. A few weeks ago, we did a little project together in class -- Which will fly farther: a plain paper airplane or a paper airplane with a paper clip on the nose?

So I asked them to jot down a few ideas for potential problems to explore. I was looking for some open-ended questions and some feeling for what kinds of experiments they were interested in.

I got back a few viable responses, but as usual, the nonviable ones are a lot more fun to discuss here. So without any further ado, I present the results of what my class is truly interested in, apparently.

There were bound to be some questions that don't require an experiment to answer:
“What is longer, a ruler or a journal?”
and
“How many cups does it take to get 1 pint?”
(At least they're exploring, right?)

Then there are the ones that would actually be very interesting to see put into motion:
“How does a solid change when you hit something with it?”
(I can just imagine this kid walking around whacking everything in sight with a backpack, a notebook, or a football)

“How long can a human stay underwater?”
(How about, how long can a third grader stay quiet?)

From the "Let Me Know When You Find the Answer” files:
“How do you think liquid was invented?”
(Or maybe it was how do you think liquor was invented? -- the spelling was a bit hard to make out)

Here was one of my favorite responses:
“If I stop feeding my turtle for 10 days will it die?”
(My hypothesis -- the turtle will croak)

From there we go to the most bizarre response:
“Which one will last longer -- game or cake?”
(I don't even know what the intent of that question was)

And finally, here's one that didn't really meet the criteria for what I asked for, but it does show that the boy has learned something in science AND that he wants to impress me:
“If you grab a block with no string and it will be heavy and if you put a string around of a block it will not be heavy because you can pull it up and then go tell your teacher."