Thursday, April 7, 2011

3rd Grade - Spurious was the word of the day. Spurious means false, counterfeit. The pilgrim of the day was Henry Ford. While many are under the impression that Mr. Ford invented the car, there were 50 companies producing automobiles when Henry Ford started the Ford Motor Company. Mr. Ford thought that the people building the car should be able to afford to own one. In order to build them for less, Henry Ford invented the assembly line. The first Model T off the assembly line sold for $850. Seven years later, Ford vehicles were selling for $290. Plexer Puzzles were the warm-up activity of the day. Plexers are common words or phrases put into picture form. Students use visual thinking skills to solve the problems. Our trip to Crystal Pond Woods focused once again on Evaluative Thinking with students continuing the development of criteria to solve problems. Students were given thirty minutes of free time. By using the Problem Solving Matrix and using their criteria, students spent their free time learning and experimenting with flight. The Discoveries lesson had students focused on the fact that discoveries may impact the behavior of people and influence history. Just as the Gold Rush brought an influx of people into California, the discovery of dinosaur bones created a frenzy among scientists and they rushed to the west coast of England. Next week, we will research some well known dinosaur hunters. 5th Grade - Colossal was the word of the day. It mean enormous, gigantic; huge in size, extent or degree and sounds like Fossil. Percy Spencer was the Pilgrim of the day. One day, while working for the Ratheon Company, Percy spent too much time near some magnetron tubes. Later, when he remembered he wanted to eat the candy bar in his pocket, he found that the candy bar had melted. He started asking for food from his coworkers to see what would happen. This was the beginning of microwave ovens. These students also worked on the Plexer puzzles. Trying to be more empathic or understanding was the focus of the affective lesson. After lunch, students visited the idea of moving continents. This will prepare students for the experiment they will explore next week. They then received the third clue that would help them search for their lost family in the SOS project. The final activity of the day was to add more pieces to our invisible men.