Today we started to research about the pilgrims and their trip on the Mayflower.  We watched a short movie clip and then used the following website.
http://www.scholastic.com/scholastic_thanksgiving/voyage/journey.htm
These are some of our observations about the trip:
"The pilgrims that rode on the Mayflower did not have very good things to eat." Jude
"The trip was hard for them because they were down in a dark hold with no real beds."Saxton
"It took them 65 days to cross the ocean."Aidan
"They were all crammed up in the small area below the deck."Laura
"Most of the pilgrims slept on the floor."Alberto
"There was a storm while they were sailing and they went off course."Jacob
"Some of the pilgrims were strangers and did not know anyone."Emma
"Most of the crew of the Mayflower were not nice to the pilgrims."Ian
"Most of the pilgrims got sick on their journey."Aidan
"During a storm one of the main beams cracked." Laura

We started a project about the First Thanksgiving.  We are going to research about the First Thanksgiving and then we will present our findings in a digital poster on Glogster.  Our posters will be presented to another class and of course our parents on our Wiki.  Today we brainstormed the questions we felt would need to be answered for everyone to understand the importance of Thanksgiving.  The questions we came up with were:
Why did they have the first feast?
What did the pilgrims learn from the Native Americans?
What was it like at the first feast?
What was it like to be a pilgrim child?
What did the pilgrims wear?
What was it like to travel on the Mayflower?
What were pilgrim homes like?
What did they eat and how was it fixed?
What was the first winter in the new world like?

This afternoon we had a design challenge to create a cotton ball catapult.  Here is the website that set up the challenge.
http://pbskids.org/zoom/activities/sci/cottonballcatapult.html
Then we looked at some movies of real catapults in action.  We had 20 minutes to build and the objective was to have the cotton ball go the longest distance.  Here are some pictures of their catapults.

The team that one was the only team that used the ruler horizontally.  We discuss why they thought this made the difference.  Congratulations to Ellorie and Elijah.  They won with 304cm.  Wow!!!!

Today was our last of our STEM lesson.  It was our improve batch of play dough.  We had a chemical engineer and a Cannon mom come and give us some advice.  Thanks to Mrs. Rosamond for the great advice.  We took the advice and what we learned yesterday and mixed our second batch.  I am happy to share that we had great success.  All of our 2nd batches scored 4-6 with the 6 being the highest.  We had some high quality play dough.  Yeah!!!!!!

 

Today we created our first batch of play dough.  We all followed the same process.  Water, Salt, and Flour that was decided on yesterday.  As groups we got to decide if we would add more or less of each material. 
"Some of the play dough looked like soup."Jude
"Some of the play dough was really sticky."Jacob
"Only one play dough scored above a 2 on our quality test and it was kind of hard and flaky."Alberto
Then we walked around and observed every groups play dough and had them tell us how they changed the amount of materials that were added.  We went back to our groups and have come up with a new plan to improve tomorrows batch.
"Mrs. Ganus first batch of play dough wasn't so bad after all." Laura
"Tomorrow we are going to add more flour." Brooklyn
"Tomorrow we are going to keep the salt the same but change the amount of water and flour."Emma

Today in STEM we looked at the engineering design process and worked on finishing the plan stage.  We watched Mrs. Ganus make a low quality batch of play dough.  We then recorded her steps in a flow map.

We then brainstormed how to change the order of the process to make a higher quality play dough.  Here is our plan.

"We thought if we mixed the salt and water together first the salt would dissolve and the mixture would not be as grainy." Jude
Next we worked on if we were going to change the amounts of each material we added.  Every group decided this on their own.  Tomorrow we will follow our plan and hopefully make a higher quality play dough.
"Our group decided less salt because so it wouldn't be so gritty."Emma
"Our group decided less water because the first batch was too sticky."Riley
"Our group kept flour the same but added more water and less salt so it didn't feel like sand." Aidan
"Our group is going to add more flour and less water so it will not be so sticky."Alberto
"Our group decided keep the flour the same and lower the water and salt so it will not be so gritty and runny."Laura

Today for our STEM Lesson we continued to work on our driving question: How can we determine the quality of a play dough process and how do the play dough materials change when they are mixed together?  Yesterday we worked on the quality section today we worked on the mixing materials and the properties of the mixtures.  We looked at our materials and their properties first.  Then we came up with rules for our tests.

After that we started to conduct tests with different combinations of materials.  Here is our results.

Then we drew some conclusions about different combinations of materials.
"The more flour you put in the less sticky the mixture is." Emma
"The more water you add the more runny the mixture is." Laura
"Salt thicken the water."Jude
"Too much salt and the mixture gets grainy."Brooklyn

Today in our STEM lesson we tested high and low quality play dough and wrote down their properties.  We then made a rating scale for texture and usage using those properties.

Next we worked on a test we could use to determine the quality scores for any play dough.  This is our final test we will use throughout the rest of this project.

We then tested the high quality and low quality play dough using our Quality Test and determined what score they would receive. 

"Mrs. Ganus makes some low quality play dough." Jude
"The high quality play dough was able to pass all of our tests." Laura
"The low quality play dough did not pass any of the tests." Emma
" The low quality play dough was gritty and really sticky."Aidan
"The low quality play dough was so sticky that it stuck to our hands even upside down." Alberto

Today for the STEM lesson we surveyed two 4th grade classes to see the best color for the Strawberry Orange Juice that Creative Juices is creating.  Container B was our overall winner.  We then graphed the results of our product research survey.  After we completed the graph we filled out a Product Research Report sharing our results to the President of The Creative Juices Company.  Check out our results. 

Today was a busy day.  We finished our project on measurement.  We have worked for 2 weeks on measuring length.  Today we got to take our knowledge of measurement to complete the daredevil design challenge.  To the see the challenge visit the following link.
daredevil challenge
daredevil 2
Here are some pictures of us completing the challenge.

Our results surprised us.  Check out our results.
"The heat made two of the balls bounce higher." Levi
"The frozen balls did not bounce as high as the normal and heated balls." Aidan

"Today in our STEM lesson we heard from a chemical engineer named Jenny who works for Creative Juice Company.  She asked us to help her with some product research.  She needs us to find out what color she needs to make their new strawberry orange juice.  We decided we would collect our data in a graph.  Then we mixed many color choices.  As a class we picked the best 3."Emma

"The three colors we picked were combinations of yellow and red food coloring."Jude
"Tomorrow we will conduct our survey and see which color wins."Alberto

We reread the story Michelle's MVP.  Then we analyzed the story using a Think, Pair, and Share.  We worked on questions before the story, during the story, and after the story.

Then we talked about the Engineering Design Process.  We looked at all the steps: Ask, Imagine, Plan, Create, and Improve.  We discussed how the steps were modeled in the story.  We then opened a copy of the steps from Dropbox in Educreations and filled in the steps of the Engineering Design Process that were in the story.  Here are a couple of great examples.

For our STEM lesson today we talked about what is a chemical engineer and what is a process. 
Here is a chart of our answers.

Then we read the story Michelle's MVP award.  In this story a girl and her chemical engineer Uncle use a process to create play dough.  They use the play dough to raise money for their hockey team. 

"We learned that a process can help anyone create anything." Emma
"We learned that everyone can be really good at something." Alberto

Today in Science we started our STEM unit on matter.  We started by looking at, "What is an engineer?" 
"Someone who fixes things." Brooklyn
"Someone who makes things things."Levi
"Someone who fixes, makes, or designs things to solve problems."Emma

Then we looked at, "What is technology?" 
"Something that helps you solve a problem." Jude
"Something that helps you meet a need." Mrs. Ganus

Then we all got to pick a piece of technology and tell about it.  Here is a example.

Today in math we had a group challenge.  They were given a paper cup and they were told the team that got it to move down the table the most would win.  The challenge was they were not allowed to touch the cup with any objects.  The teams had a planning and testing time.  Then we did a first run.  They learned some strategies from each other and we did a second run.  Then we measured how far the cups went using craft sticks.  I tried to trick them by using different sized craft sticks but they told me right away when you measure you need to use the same sized objects.  So we fixed the problem and found our winner.