A Peek into Science | Cuyahoga Falls | October 2018

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Welcome to another month of science! Mr.John has kept us busy with new science experiments.

During each science activity, we always come up with our own hypothesis. A hypothesis is an educated guess. A great part about Mr.John’s science class is that it never matters if our hypothesis is wrong or right! Mr. John always tells us that it is okay to be wrong because sometimes even scientists are wrong! That is how they learn what works and what doesn’t work.

Don’t forget to check your students science paper in their folder ever Thursday to see what their hypothesis was for that weeks experiment!

Distribution of Weight

Materials needed to complete this activity at home:

  • Books
  • A piece of paper
  • A couple of rubber bands

Question of the week: What will happen when we try to balance a text book or multiple picture books on a piece of paper? What about when the piece of paper is turned into a cylinder?

Well, the flat paper got squished by the books! Then Mr. John turned it into a cylinder using rubber bands. What happened next?

The cylinder of paper supported all the picture books! Amazing!

 

But why was the cylinder of paper able to hold the book, but the single piece of paper did not? SCIENCE!

The average weight of a piece of paper is .7 grams. It makes sense that it wouldn’t be able to balance a book! It just collapses under the weight of a book. This is because the paper is unable to keep it’s shape. It wants to return to a flat position. But, when Mr.John uses rubber bands to keep the paper in a cylinder shape, it all changes.

The secret to the paper’s new found strength is the geometrical shape known as a cylinder! Cylinders are one of the most structurally sound and strongest geometrical shapes. They are able to be strong because they disperse stress throughout their entire shape. If the rolled-up piece of paper were a perfect cylinder, the strength of it would be even stronger!

Teflon Tape Secret Message

Question: What will happen if we write a secret message on a strip of Teflon tape?

Materials Needed:

  • Teflon tape
  • Permanent marker

This week Mr. John introduced us to polymers! On the Teflon tape Mr. John wrote GO BUCKEYES! Then he stretched the tape out so much, we couldn’t read his message anymore!

Then he pulled on it again and SCIENCE made the letters legible again! But how?

Teflon tape is a type of polymer called polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE). That’s a really long word for a kind of polymer that has long chains of molecules lined up side-by-side and on top of each other. Polymers like to be near each other. After Mr. John stretched the tape, the polymers that make up the tape were all puled apart. When Mr. John pulls in the opposite way on the tape firmly, the polymers become reconnected together which allows the message to be legible again.

Friction

Mr.John was absent this week, so I (Miss Ame) stepped in with a shortened version of science for our classes.

Materials:

  • Spider print out
  • Sewing thread
  • cardboard
  • Match

The spider was glue to a small piece of cardboard. On the other side of the cardboard was a match attached to it with glue. In between the match and the cardboard was a piece of thread.

Using our imagination we pretended that the thread was the spider’s web. While I was holding both ends of the web tightly, the spider did not move. He was suspending sitting still in his web.

I then asked the student’s what they thought would happen if I let go of the string that I was holding our spider. Would he fall? Would he stay hanging on his web? So each child shared their hypothesis, all starting their sentence with “My hypothesis…”

On the count of three I let go of the spider…..and he fell quickly to the end of his web! But why?

Because of friction!

When the thread is held taut, it touches the match. This causes friction between the match and the thread, which is strong enough to stop the spider from moving down the thread. But, when you let it go slack it no longer touches the match. This means less friction, so the spider slides easily down.

How much fun we have had in science this month! Thank you Mr. John!

Science Enrichment | Cuyahoga Falls | September 2018

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Welcome back to another fantastic year of science with Mr. John! Mr. John does science every Thursday for our classes at the Cuyahoga Falls site. He prepares fun and interactive science experiments that students enjoy so much. After each class your student will come home with an outline of the experiment, your child’s hypothesis and an explanation of what us happening during the experiment.

Here a student is pouring baking soda into a balloon. Each student had the opportunity to fill their own balloon during this experiment!
Here the student is emptying the baking soda in her balloon into a 2liter bottle that is full of white vinegar. The end of the balloon is securely around the opening of the bottle.
Here a student is helping Mr. John as her balloon begins to expand after the baking soda is combined with the vinegar in the bottle. Why is the balloon filling up and expanding?

The science, behind this balloon baking soda experiment, is the chemical reaction between the base {baking soda} and the acid {vinegar}. When the two ingredients mix together the balloon baking soda experiment gets it’s lift! The balloon is filling with the gas produced from the two ingredients is carbon dioxide or CO2.Carbon dioxide is Mr. John’s favorite gas.

Week 2:

Here two students are putting eggs into cups of water. One cup has plain water and the other is salt water.
Here the two eggs are in fresh water. They are at the bottom of the cup.
Here the two eggs are in salt water. They are floating at the top.

If you put an egg in a cup of tap water, it will sink to the bottom. Why is this?

Because the density of the egg is higher than the density of tap water, so it sinks. Density is the mass of a material per unit volume. For example, the density of freshwater under standard conditions is approximately one gram per cubic centimeter.

But, if you add enough salt to the water, the egg will actually float back up to the surface! Adding salt to the water increases the density of the solution because the salt increases the mass without changing the volume very much.

When enough salt is added to the water, the saltwater solution’s density becomes higher than the egg’s, so the egg will then float! The ability of something, like the egg, to float in water or some other liquid is known as buoyancy.

 

Week 3

In week three, all Mr.John needed was water, a plate and SKITTLES! Only 3 materials needed for this experiment.
Mr. John had arranged the skittles by color on the plate. Then he poured water on them. At first, nothing happened. Then all our friends began to point because the water started to change!
The color on the skittles began to mix into the surrounding water. Noticenthough, that none of the colored water appears to be mixing. Why is that?
Mr. John explained that each skittlen is covered with the coloring and a itty bit of wax. The wax creates the barriers between the colors. Once the wax starts to mix with the water, the colors will eventually all blend together. Here is Mr. John and friends pretending to be the wax, keeping the other colors away.
So bummed that we didn’t get to eat the skittles!

Week 4

In week 4, Mr. John used oil, water, food coloring, an empty plastic bottle and a funnel. Have you noticed that he tends to use everyday household materials for a majority of his experiments?

Mr. John began with making blue water in the bottle using the food dye. Then he filled the rest of the bottle with the oil.

 

Then Mr. John had each student shake the bottle to mix all the oil and water. At first it seemed to work.

Mr. John set the bottle down and everyone had their eyes glued to the bottle. The oil and water were separating!

 

Why does the water not mix with the oil?  

  • Oil is less dense than water.  Given the variance in densities the two liquids cannot mix.
  • Oil and water also do not mix because water molecules are more attracted to each other than to oil molecules.
Shake shake Shake! Shake your bottle!

I hope you enjoyed this month of activities. Don’t forget to check your student’s folder on Thursdays for the instructions for each experiment!

A Peek Into Music | February

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February was so much fun in Miss Lisa’s class! We reviewed Peter and the Wolf, started learning about the piano, practiced our listening skills and played some fantastic games! Check out our fun pictures below to see more details of these fun lessons!

Here Miss Lisa is introducing the piano. It is so neat that she can bring in her piano synthesizer to us! She teacher us about the difference between the white and black keys to start with.
Here we are reviewing our February story Peter and the Wolf. We learned the named of many new instruments last month and the sounds they make!
Here are two friends exploring the piano synthesizer. This week we were exploring the black keys only. In pairs, we played our own creative duet for our class. We practiced taking a big bow after our duet!
One of our favorite games we play is cat and mouse! This game helps reinforce our listening skills. The mice have to get the cheese while the high music is playing, with the best audio systems from https://holoplot.com/software/. When the low music starts, the cats come home and the mice hurry back to their hole!
One of the great features of the piano synthesizer is that it can play all sorts of sounds! We had a blast playing a guessing game. Miss Lisa played us sounds of different types of transportation, people noises and animals this month. We had a great time guessing! This game also helps us practice patience, which at our ages isn’t always easy!

 

We can’t wait to see what fun activities Miss Lisa has planned for us next month!

A Peek Into Music | January 2018

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January was full of cold and snowy days but we stayed warm and active with Miss Lisa! We focused on rhythm and tempo this month. We used rhythm sticks and scarves to practice these skills.

Here students are using scarves to follow Miss Lisa dancing to the music. This lesson was focusing on the tempo of the music.

 

Here Miss Lisa is collecting rhythm sticks from students. The rhythm sticks help teach students about counting the beats and keeping a rhythm of the song. When they are collected Miss Lisa always encourages them to use their imagination to become an animal with the sticks.

 

A new unit we started at the beginning of January and finished at the end was “Peter and the Wolf”. We learned about the characters, the instruments and the story line of this classic tale.

Here Miss Lisa is introducing the instrument of Peter in “Peter and the Wolf”. Before listening to the entire story, students learn and identify which instruments indicate which character in the story.

 

Here the class is listening to “Peter and the Wolf”. Miss Lisa has illustrations to go along with the music of this tale.
Here is a great view of the wolf. Check with your student to see if they remember what character he goes after!

We had so much fun this month leaning about ” Peter and the Wolf”. The illustrations and music told such a vivid tale we will not forget anytime soon! We also learned about all sorts of instruments. Try listening to this with your student and see what they can identify at home.

A Peek Into Music | December 2017

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December was filled with lots of practice in our classrooms for our 2017 Christmas Show! In Miss Lisa’s music class we practiced performing our songs and she taught us many popular Christmas carols and songs!


Here is a friend examining a large jingle bell. Miss Lisa brought a variety of different bells for us to practice with. The two main songs we played the bells with were Jingle Bells and Jingle Bell Rock.

One of our favorite games with Miss Lisa is freeze dance! It doesn’t matter what song is playing, we love to dance! The most important skill in this game is listening. We have to listen very closely for when the music  stops so we know when to freeze our bodies.

Here is a picture of a friend waiting patiently to play her tambourine. We all know that instruments can’t play on their own, so we have to wait patiently until Miss Lisa tells us it is time to play.

A new instrument we enjoyed exploring with was the maracas! Maracas are used in many Latin and South American songs. We shook these maracas while singing along to Feliz Navidad.

We had a fantastic month with all of our festive singing! Don’t forget to order your copy of our 2017 Christmas Show DVD so you can hear us singing some of our favorites!

A Peek Into Music November 2017

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November was a fun filled month for music. Miss Lisa started teaching us some new songs from her CD. The theme this year is Love, Family and Friends. While singing the songs we also focused on using instruments, learning the beat of songs and fun dances!

This month we received our new Music CD from Miss Lisa. And what’s more is that we even received some tickets for the Pepsi Center with the CD, which was insane! This year Miss Lisa is focusing on family and friends in her songs. On this CD are many of the songs we sing in music class. Some of these songs are classics from when you were young and some are familiar tunes with a fun twist on the lyrics to incorporate her theme. Later on this year, Miss Lisa will have a surprise to go along with track 2, Sophie the Yorkie Story.

We started off with track 3 from the CD Boom Boom Ain’t It Great To Be Family. After learning the words, Miss Lisa introduced rhythm and melody to us. Half the class followed the rhythm with rhythm sticks and the other half listened for the melody and danced with scarves when the heard it. Listen to this great song and see if you can identify the parts with your child!

We also learned a short dance to go along with the song as well. Dancing with a partner was so much fun. It was tricky at first to learn the moves, but eventually the moves helped us learn the words of the song better!

Later in the month we started to learn songs that involved movement and an instrument. We had to keep our eyes on Miss Lisa for this one!

We ended our month with learning two different versions of Jingle Bells. One we used bells and the other we played freeze dance with. We also learned Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with some sweet dance moves. We can’t wait to sing Miss Lisa our songs for our show at the end December.

 

A Peek Into October 2017 Music Class

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Every Tuesday we have music with Miss Lisa. Half of our classes go in the morning and the other half goes in the afternoon. Here is what we have been up to this month!

This month we started off with learning the terms ‘adagio’ and ‘andante’. Adagio means slow and andante means medium. We also learned the term ‘Allegra’, which means fast. We practiced these different speeds with the song “She’ll be Coming Around the Mountain” and playing the tambourine.
The second week of October Miss Lisa introduced us to a couple of new songs involving counting and hand movements! We sang Allison’s Camel, Knick-Knock-Paddy Wack, The More We Get Together and 3 Little Monkeys. We loved using our fingers to count the different things in each song! We also learned a few new dances that went along with these songs. We love all the movement that Miss Lisa incorporates into her lessons!
We all have really started to learn the words to the songs and are having so much fun singing along with Miss Lisa. We also reviewed the words ‘piano’ which means soft/quiet and ‘forte’ which means loud. We also had a short discussion about how all of the music words we are learning are Italian. Miss Lisa’s music class is a wonderful enrichment on Tuesdays and we are looking forward to what we will do next month with her! Thank you Miss Lisa!