Science

It has been a busy month for second grade science! 

We started off the month with another build challenge to make "bone bridges" for Halloween. I anticipated that students would use cue tips for this, but most chose to make it a bone bridge by placing our skeletons as weight on the bridge.

Second graders finished drawing their life size skeletons as part of our study of bones and enjoyed looking at various skulls and bones from the tile room collection. We briefly explored the world of dinosaurs by comparing images of dinosaur skulls and teeth to human eating utensils and playing a feeding game to obtain food/prey (using spoons, forks, clothespins, grapes, spinach and rubber bands). The consensus is that forks are most like sharp teeth and are best at getting grapes. We looked at lots of different fossils and practiced being paleontologists through carefully excavating a sample dig site. My proudest moment was when students recognized the different bones in their samples as being a shoulder blade or vertebrae. To finish up fossils and bones, we made imprint fossils with shells and playdough (which sadly rather than dry became moldy so did not go home with the children). 

Of course a highlight of the month was our field trip to Wilder Ranch. Thank you again for all the parent support for this soggy endeavor! What an adventure!

Lately we have been studying force and motion. First we characterized all movement simplistically as either a push or a pull (gravity = a big pull, walking = push, swinging on the dome = pull). A big thanks to Estella Camacho for helping out with a highly energetic experiment involving trucks and ramps to see if a toy truck goes faster with more weight (and does the placement of weight make a difference). 

Paleontologists.

Baby Bones on the bridge.

Answering the question - does air take up space?

Rampin' it up.