Today in STEM we continued with our jobs as material engineers.  To we took 3 materials (brick, paper, and straw) and brainstormed their properties.  Then we decided if they would be a good material to keep you warm based on their properties and had to defend our thinking with proof.  Here is our work.

"All materials could have been good or bad at keeping you warm depending on what properties you were looking at."Emma

Today for our STEM unit we got to pretend we were material engineers and look at properties of objects.  We then looked at how if we changed materials how the new properties would affect the way the object worked.  For example we talked about the properties of a spoon and we discussed what would be different if the spoon was made of paper, rock, or glass.  We also talked about how some properties are important to how an object works and some are just for looks.  For example we looked at a quilt.  The weight of the material is important for the blanket to keep you warm but the color is not. Here are the anchor charts of the class' thinking.

"Different materials have different properties."Bailee
"Being a material engineer is fun."Ian

Yesterday we started working on our new STEM unit.  Yi Min's Great Wall.  We have read the story which is about a girl and a boy trying to build a wall to protect their garden at school.  They use the design process to create mortar mixtures that will hold their wall together.  We analyzed materials that could possible be used to create walls here is an example of our thinking.  We also discussed the design process they used in the book and filled in the engineering design process form to show the steps they went through.

Last week we finished our rock star project.  Today is the big day.  We are having our "Who Wants to be a Rock Star" auditions.  All of our videos will be shown in front of a panel of judges. (Mrs. Blizzard, Mrs. Ricci, Mrs. Berumen, Mrs. Goins, and Mr. Lollis)  The video that shows the information about rocks in the most interesting way will be the winner.  Check out these videos.
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGU-HlcJPVfPMmPPy2jxEXSlgVvDNoF1v

Today we finished our National Holiday Project.  They researched some of the national holidays and then wrote a letter to Mrs. Blizzard to convince her the holiday needs to be celebrated here at school.  Check out these amazing letters.

In social studies we have been researching national holidays.  The children have researched 6 holidays.  They will pick one of the holidays and write a persuasive letter to Mrs. Blizzard explaining why that holiday needs to be celebrated at school.

"Veteran's Day is celebrated to remember people who have served in the military."Alberto
"On Labor Day we celebrate American workers."Emma 
"On Presidents Day we celebrate George Washington and Abraham Lincoln."Jude

Our design challenge today was a WATERCRAFT challenge.  We watched two quick videos .
video 1
video 2
Then they were given the challenge of building a boat out of straws and plastic wrap that could hold 25 pennies for at least 10 seconds before sinking.  They used the following Design Squad instructions.
Challenge
Check out our boats. Here is our first team to complete the challenge. Congratulations.

It was really neat to hear some of their ideas about how to redesign in their 1st attempt did not work.  Things I heard was to make the boat heavier so it would displace more water.  I also heard to make the boat more in a v shape so it would displace more water.  There was some deep thinking going on in the redesign process.  Some worked and some did not but they were coming up with a way to fix it right away.  Great Job!!!

Today we walked down to Nash Farms.  We used all of our inferring knowledge to guess clues about the field trip at the end of our inferring project.  Later this spring we will be learning about historical buildings in Grapevine and Nash Farms will be one of them.  It was a wonderful day to see the historical landmark.

"We saw old tractors." Riley
"We saw chickens." Laura
"We looked in the farm house."Jacob
"We saw the machine they would use to harvest corn."Emma
"We saw many old farm equipment."Brooklyn
"We saw the barn."Bailee

We are continuing to work on our rock star projects.  Most of the groups are finished with the experiments and research and have started to compose their rock songs. 

"Rocks can have different shapes and colors." Brooklyn
"When you rub rocks together it makes dust." Emma
"When you put rocks with holes in water air bubbles come out."Alberto
"Rocks can be different sizes."Bailee
"When you wash rocks you can sometimes see different attributes when the rocks are wet."Elijah
"When rocks get wet they get darker in color." Laura
"Rocks can change over time."Jacob

Wow we got a special treat today.  The Texas Rangers Winter Caravan made a stop at Cannon.  They brought 3 up and coming players, one of the announcers, and the Ranger Captain (horse).  The players were Wilmer Font, Mike Olt, and Martine Perez.  They all shared with the kids how important going to school and listening to your parents is to whatever you decide to do with your future.  What a great message.

Texas Rangers are coming!!!!!

Tomorrow the Texas Rangers Winter Caravan is coming to Cannon.  We can't wait to see which players they bring with us.  To show thanks to the Rangers for coming to our elementary school we are asking all the kids come to school in Ranger gear or Ranger colors.

I am so glad to be back with the scholars.  We have started off the new year with a rock project. 
Check out the project at rock project
The kids will do a number of experiments, watch movies, and read books about rocks to increase their schema about rocks.  They will then take the schema to compose a song and produce a rock music video about rocks.  The videos will be judged and the winning video will be shown on K-Can.  Here is some pictures of some of the experiments they are working on.