March Madness

Welcome March!  It certainly came in like a lamb... I hope it doesn't go out like a lion!!  We have been very busy chugging along through 4th grade.  Here's a little recap to bring us up to speed....

In February:

Class does an AWESOME performance of "Little Red Goldilocks and the Three Bearpigs: A Play's Play".  I am working on uploading it to youtube.  Everyone did a fabulous job and really wow-d the pants off of the audience.  In the last post you can view a clip of our class performing our song: "If You Wanna Write  a Story".  Thank you for all of the parent and community support during that project.  It was certainly helpful.

The end of the Hangar Theater play allowed us to reestablish our daily routine, as much of that time had been enveloped by our rehearsals.

We did our unit on Magnetism and Electricity.  

Some important things to know about Magnetism:

• Magnets are attracted to iron or steel.
• If a material sticks to a magnet then it is made of, or partly of, iron or steel
• Magnets have a North poled and a South pole (also shown as + or -, respectively)
• "Opposites Attract" - If you put two positive ends or two negative ends of the magnets together they will repel.  If you put a positive end with a negative end the magnets will attract.
  
• Induced Magnetism: the influence of a permanent magnet's magnetic field on a piece of iron, which makes the iron act like a magnet
  

We explored electrical circuits and build an electromagnet.

We learned that the wire had to touch certain spots on the battery (power source) and the lightbulb (receiver) in order for the lightbulb to light.  We built many different types of circuits.  Some had motors for the receivers, some included switches for us to turn off an off, others had two batteries, and some had multiple receivers.  

We learned about the difference between a series circuit and a parallel circuit.  

A series circuit has more than one receiver that is powered by the same power source.  In our case, we built a closed circuit that had one battery and two light-bulbs.  With a series circuit the electricity comes out the positive side of the battery and into the first lightbulb and then the second.  Because there is a constant flow of electricity from the battery, both bulbs stay lit; however, if one bulb burns out the flow of electricity is interrupted and the other lightbulb will turn off.

Here is an example of a series circuit:

The important thing to remember with series circuits is that the electricity enters

 the first lightbulb and then the second.  The second would not light without

 the first. I relate it to a series of books.  One comes out after another.

The second type of  circuit we explored was a parallel circuit.  In a parallel circuit both receivers share the same power source. The difference with this kind of circuit is that each receiver has it's own electric flow from the power source.  The result is that if one bulb goes out, the others stay lit.  This is how they finally learned to make holiday lights!  I remember how many strings of lights would go in the garbage simply because one bulb went out, causing the rest to go out,  and we had no replacements.  I'm glad they switched from series circuits to parallel circuits!

Here is an example of a parallel circuit.:

You can see that each lightbulb is connected to the power source and has its own flow of electricity.

Here is a video of Clio explaining the difference between the two kinds of circuits.

There is some really great information and some cool interactive activities on the Delta Education Foss website.  We get our Science materials from this company.  Have fun visiting it.

www.fossweb.com

What's to come in March and beyond?

Hopefully many sun-filled days!

Math: Unit 7 & 8

In these units we explore fractions, perimeter and area.

Social Studies: Early Explorers and American Revolution

Please visit my wiki- http://bongsfourthgrade.wikispaces.com for some resources 

Science: Measurement

Writing: Non-Narrative Essays

Reading: Reading Deeper into Books