Sunday, April 10, 2011

Bacteria Experiment

The class looks at slides of different shapes & colors of bacteria.

Our petri dishes with some growth!
This past week, our class was introduced to the Scientific Method. 
Mr. Keleher came in and helped the class design and implement a REAL experiment!
The question was "How CLEAN is our classroom?"
We listed our materials and made a hypothesis as to which part of the room we thought to be dirtiest. Mr. Keleher swabbed 5 areas of the classroom (to test the hypothesis).
(doorknob, teacher's table, chalkboard, soap dispenser, pencil)
...and as an important aside, the class wanted to feel the inside of a petri dish...this was the 6th dish...
Ask your child for the results of the experiment!  What?  Did you think I was going to give it away?
Thank you to Mr. Keleher!

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Stuffies

1.  Due to the snow day, we'll have our Stuffy Day on Monday.
The stuffy should fit in your child's backpack.

2.  We are still getting more press on Uncle Jim's Blog.
Please check it out.

3.  You may have heard, we've started to talk about writing a non-fiction piece.
The class opted to do a little research. (Instead of going with something they already knew a lot about.)
So, we are reading, checking the library, and searching the web (with a wonderful parent volunteer).
Please ask your child what they are researching and see if you can help sift through any information or ask them what they already know...