The Children’s Museum of Atlanta is reopening after a major renovation.

Click here to visit the Museum’s site.

We love watching these frogs!

Love the creative way third grade classes demonstrated their knowledge of landforms!

Third grade finished their Earth Unit with a lab about soil. After a discussion about the parts of soil, we used food to learn more about soil layers.  The square of chocolate in the bottom of our cup was bedrock and the Fruit Loops above it represented weathered rock.  Then we added a crushed Graham Cracker for subsoil.  Chocolate pudding became topsoil and a crushed Oreo was humus.  We topped the cup off with leaf litter (green sprinkles).

Our fourth grade labs are so action packed, it is hard to capture pictures.  A few students volunteered to reenact a couple of the simple investigations that occurred during one of our weather labs. Click below to watch the scientists in action:

Weather Video 1

Weather Video 2

Weather Video 3

Our annual Career Day was held on Friday the 13th.
Thank you for volunteering your time!

Engineers are presented with a problem and then they design a solution using science and math. Our investigation of sink and float continued and kindergarten, Pre-First, and first grade students were asked to design a boat that could hold pennies.  I asked them what ideas they had before we started.  Comments included the following:  “We need to make the bottom the strongest.”  “My boat needs sides, so the pennies don’t fall off and the water doesn’t come in.”  “I am going to spread the pennies out, so my boat doesn’t sink in the middle.”  ” I am going to check for holes in my boat.”  “You need to make sure the corners are tight.”  After we tested our boats, we discussed what we learned and ways we might modify our designs.

I encouraged my engineers to use other materials with their foil (such as pencils, straws, sponges, or Popsicle sticks) to create a boat at home in the bath tub.  Look at the boat that Luke created at his house.

I have listed two family day trips that might be a fun way to enhance the third grade’s unit on rocks and minerals. Click on the links below for more information.

Consolidated Gold Mines in Dahlonega

Tellus Science Center

Third grade is observing a homemade filtering system.  I layered sand and gravel in the top of a two liter bottle. Then I secured cheesecloth over the opening with a rubber band.  You could also use a coffee filter if cheesecloth isn’t available.  I put very muddy water through the system twice.

I used two layers of gravel and two of sand.