Olympic Excitement and Rocket Ship Art

How can you tie an inquiry unit on space and the Olympics together?  We did!  Now that we know that there is only one place in our solar system that life can exist, we want to know how we can take care of it.  The Olympics is a perfect example of bringing the world together in sportsmanship and goodwill.  How can we encourage others to keep this spirit all year long and recognize that we have only one planet to live on together? How we get there is completely up to my super creative kiddos!

The class has been working hard on their planet projects.  Most have finished their research using the Pebble Go website and books from our classroom library.  Many have had their research typed up in “book writing” and are now making their books.  One Super Kid even asked if we could make an “All About The Author” page with their pictures on it.  “Like real authors do” he said. Of course I told him he is a real author and that would be a great idea!  Stay tuned for our finished products coming soon!

Mars sand hasn’t touched water in over 13,000 million years according to NASA.  Using “Space Sand” we tested this theory.  “Space Sand” is the same sand that NASA uses in their Mars experiments.  We predicted what would happen and then tested it.  First we put the sand directly into the water and even pulled it out with a spoon.  The kids were amazing that it repelled the water and actually came out of the water dry!  One Super Kid asked how people would grow food on Mars if they ever went there.  What a great question!  I told the class about the fictional movie “The Martian” where the astronaut survived by farming his own potatoes.  How could this be with soil that hasn’t touched water in millions of years?  Another Super Kid told me that it was just a movie and not real.  After laughing, I thanked him and told him that it made me wonder and now I have so many questions about how people would live on Mars!

      

Inspired by all of our learning, we just had to make some art.  Designing rocket ships when we created our classroom ship, lead to this art project.  With our imaginations running wild the Super Kids created some amazing pieces.  Make sure to pop by the classroom if you can to see our display.

    

On Thursday, I challenged the class to create symmetrical stars using pattern blocks.  The STEM activity needed their prior knowledge about symmetry from our rocket ship art project.  Students were paired up and many started with small creations and then discovered that there were no limits.  They began to build up and create more elaborate designs.

The Olympic medal count chart is up and ready to be filled in on Monday.  Each day a different classroom in our neighbourhood will be responsible to update the medal count.

We are so excited the Olympics have officially started!  The time change has really reinforced our lessons on day and night, as well as the Earth’s rotation.  On Friday we watched some of the highlights from the opening ceremonies.  We were very excited to see the cauldron being lite because we had made our own in our classroom.  The class create our own newscaster desk to tell our schoolmates, families, and our blog followers all about the highlights from the Olympics!

This coming week is going to be very busy in the Super Kids’ classroom!  We have Valentine’s Day, 100th Day, Olympic highlights, and much more.  We can’t wait to share it all with you.  Enjoy your weekend. 🙂

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