Goo, Globs and Guts

The Third Grade classroom turned into a Science Laboratory this week! Students learned about the body systems and how each group of organs and tissues work together to get stuff done for our bodies. Young scientists took a closer look at the digestive system and learned different ways that our body breaks down food and provides energy. Miss Jennifer showed us a very cool example of what saliva does to launch the digestive process by pouring acetone over a styrofoam cup to model what saliva does to help break down food as we chew! Kids were thrilled to see the styrofoam cup break down and turn into a liquid right before their eyes! Students also made putty to simulate food as it is mashed up in the stomach!

Third Graders were thrilled to find out why the veins in our wrists look blue. We then discussed quantitative observations as we found our resting heart beat and compared the results to our active heartbeat. Third graders were so excited to use stethoscopes to listen to their hearts!

To top it all off, young scientists were thrilled to the gills to observe several cow organs. They observed the stomach, kidneys, heart, and liver of a cow to wrap up the learning they had done with Miss Jennifer!

MaKey MaKey

This week, Mr. Tom used MaKey MaKey in music class. Makey Makey is a tiny circuit board that tricks a computer into thinking it is a keyboard. Classes composed music and learned about switches and why their bodies are good conductors. During this class, students learned about circuits and how to use conductive materials to trigger sounds on the computer using GarageBand. This week, they used copper wire, graphite and their bodies as conductors. Tom Noren has brought Makey Makey to many area schools integrating technology and music in an engaging and creative learning experience. His company is called Musical Wires.

Using MaKey MaKey, 3rd Grade created sound effects for their radio show. They also created a giant circuit by holding hands and connecting the ground wire to the trigger wire.

Accountability Partners

This week students at TCS were introduced to a new concept known as Accountability Partners. This idea came out of the goal we have as teachers for all students to achieve excellence through hard work, responsibility and self-awareness. Students were assigned a partner in their classroom whose job it is to hold them accountable for the goals that they set. This role looks different during each subject. For example, during Writing Workshop, partners check in with one another at the beginning and share their writing goals for that day. Then they check in again at the end of the workshop and discuss whether or not they reached their goal. If the goal hasn’t been met then the Accountability Partner gives advice for what to do differently next time.