Hey Snowman, What's the "MATTER"?

Students arrived at school on a "chilly" January morning to find a VERY special visitor! A snowman!! We got right to work naming our snowman. Students worked in groups to brainstorm and decide a name that the group agreed on. Then groups presented their name choices to the class and we took a vote. Since three of the four groups had the very same name choice, the majority definitely ruled! OLAF it is!!! We took some time to observe our snowman, measure our snow man, make predictions about what we think will happen to our snowman throughout the day. Olaf started out as a solid snowman and we watched him change throughout the day, dripping away slowly. Olaf got the spend the night in the classroom and when we came back to school the next day, well, Olaf was just a puddle. Mrs. Halloran took Olaf, the puddle, home to demonstrate what happens after the "puddle" or liquid stage. This was SUCH  a fun way for students to observe the different states of matter in action!

 

Unique as a Snowflake

Winter in Florida isn't quite the same as it is in the rest of the country. We did our best to do some exploring and learning about what winter really is besides just cute snowmen, jackets and hot cocoa. We took a close look a what is an actual snowflake, how is it formed, how it helps the earth and what can happen when there is too much snow. The students were intrigued that there is an actual scientific explanation for the unique patterns in a snow flake. Since we didn't have any snowflakes of our own to inspect here in the sunshine state, we made some crafty ones of our own with some shiny silver glitter :) Students then wrote about all the different reasons they are unique. My class is certainly filled with some very unique and special little snowflakes!!

"Simily Selfies"

Our class can be silly as a selfie!!
What kids doesn't like to take a funny "selfie" now and then on their parent's phone? While studying what similes are, students wrote creative similes about them selves. I thought it would be fun to display their simile with their very own selfie. So, they each got to use Mrs. H's cell phone to take their selfie. I printed out their selfies and they wrote their similes underneath. These were fun to read while hanging on display in our hall way. We had lots of visitors checking them out and seeing what creative things they wrote about themselves.

Class selfie :)