This week in engineering we are working on The Three Little Pigs Engineering Challenge.  They must use the materials provided to create a house for a pig that an withstand the effects of different wind speeds.  Three of the groups have chosen to use tape and craft sticks for their constructions.  Another group is using sugar cubes. I can not wait to see their final buildings. 

This week in science we started an animal project.  The students will be engineering a habitat for the animal they selected.  This habitat will need to meet the needs of their animal.  They can use supplies from school to build this habitat.  Some of them have already asked if they can add things that they bring in from home.  I am fine with that.  So if they ask for supplies please help them collect them if possible.  They will be working on this project for the next two weeks.  I can't wait to see how they will impress me this time. 

Our engineering challenge for this week was building the tallest free-standing Rapunzel Tower out of paper.  The tower needs to be able to have a braid of hair hanging down on one side.  They were allowed to any kind of paper they wanted.  It is amazing how quickly after first tests they realized that the base was going to make a big difference in this challenge. 

This week in science we are working on patterns in the sky.  Today we went used a model to see how the moon phases happen.  We used a ball to represent the moon, a flashlight to represent the sun and we each got to act as the Earth.  We rotated the moon around Earth and held the sun in a constant location and we observed all the phases in the moon in one full rotation of the person.

Reminder for Friday!

As a reminder, Friday, 3/28, is the final day to purchase your meal tickets for PTA's Family Movie Night scheduled for next Thursday, April 3rd.  The In-N-Out Burger truck will be parked at Cannon next week, cooking up hamburgers for all Cannon families to enjoy before the movie starts!  All of the details about this event are listed below.  You won't want to miss this fun family night!! 

• Date- Thursday, April 3
• In-N-Out Burger Truck parked @ Cannon - 6:00-7:30    75% of sales donated to Cannon PTA & 25% donated to local charity
• Meal Cost - $5 per person (burger, chips, drink) Purchase in advance by Friday, 3-28
• Movie Time - 7:30 pm - Disney's Despicable Me 2 - will be shown outdoors (weather permitting), so bring blankets and lawn chairs.  In event of inclement weather, movie will be inside.
• Concessions - popcorn & other snacks will be sold during movie - $1 each

Can't wait to see you all there!

Today in math we worked on selecting appropriate tools when measuring an object.  I did many silly measuring tool mistakes and they caught all of my mistakes.  Ex. Using a cup to measure length.  We looked closely at the ruler, yard stick and the tape measure then they got to practice using all of these appropriate length measuring tools.

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.