An Apple a Day...

We have been busy learning all about apples in science. We learned all about the Apple Life Cycle and how they grow on trees. And we explored them inside and out...

Then recorded our results in our science journals.

And finally, we had an Apple Tasting Party!

We tasted 6 different varities of apples and loved them all!

But as our pictograph shows, good old-fashioned Red Delicious was our favorite!

Pumpkin Science

Who says science has to be boring? We sure had a lot of fun exploring pumpkins inside and out!

We explored the outsides of pumpkins and recorded our findings in our science journals...

And the we explored the insides...

Squishy...

Mushy...

Gooey...

FUN!

We counted the seeds...

There were a lot!

And then we made Jack-O-Lanterns!

Thank-you so much to all of the parents who came and helped with the ooey-gooey chaos!

Meet our Interns...

We have been very lucky this semester to have 2 inters from the University of Texas...Ms. Luong and Ms. Zhang! We have really enjoyed learning lots of new things from them.
This week, Ms. Luong and Ms. Zhang did science with us. Ms. Luong helped us do an experiment on floating and sinking. We made predictions on which items would sink and which would float and then tested our predictions...

The next day, Ms. Zhang challenged us to see if we could make a piece of modeling clay float...
We tried a lot of things....

Nope...sank...

Try again...

Nope...sank again...

For the record...blowing air into the clay doesn't work...
We finally figured out how to flatten the clay out and curve up the sides so water can't get in (like a boat), and although we don't have any pictures, we really did get some to float! Really, we did!

We Made a Video...

Five...Four...Three...Two...One...

One of our favorite videos...

An Excuse to be Loud...

We were exploring the sense of sound!

Our ears hear things and send a message to our brains. Our brains then use that information to make decisions! For example, what would you do if...

• you heard a fire alarm?
• you heard a friend crying?
• you heard the ice cream truck?
• you heard a funny joke?

You ears and your brain work together so you will know exactly what to do!

We explored our sense of hearing by doing several fun (and noisy!) activities! We shook "sound jars" and tried to guess what was inside them...

No peeking!

A ha! A match!
And we got to go crazy with things that made different sounds...

DING...CLANG...

RATTLE...

SCRATCH...

SHAKE...

WHOO...

Throw in a few BOOMS and a RING RING for good measure...and you get the idea!

And then....ahhhh.... Peace and Quiet!

Seeing is Believing!

We have been learning about the five senses in science. Specifically, we have been learning that our five senses help us gather information about the world around us. Our brain then uses that information to make decisions!

Our Five Senses Unit encompasses the following TEKS:

K.2B Plan and conduct simple descriptive investigations
K.2C Gather information using simple equipment and tools to extend the senses
K.2D Construct reasonable explanations using information
K.2E Communicate findings about simple investigations
K.4A Identify and use senses as tools of observation
K.4B Make observations using tools including hand lenses, balances, cups, bowls, and computers

We explored our sense of sight with several fun activities!

We looked through funny glasses that made everything look like a rainbow.

We looked through all sorts of kaleidoscopes...

We even got to decide what to put inside one kaleidoscope--feathers, sequins, beads...
WOW!

We explored the light that comes from a flashlight...

We used hand lenses to look at things UP CLOSE...

We played with color paddles and made some NEW colors...

And we used our sense of sight to find things in I Spy books.

It's amazing everything that our eyes can see!