The River Runs Wild by Faiz & Mrs. Greazel

                                                             RIVER EXPERIMENT

Mrs. Greazel:  Since we're studying rivers in Science, we decided to make our own rivers. This enabled us to observe the characteristics of a river, as it flows.  Last week 5 groups of students created and tested models of rivers. 

Faiz: This week we tried changing different variables in our rivers to see how these changes would impact the shape of the river. The different variables that we changed were the riverbed (rocks,sand, dirt and pebbles together instead of just sand),slope (different degrees of steepness and no slope), the riverbank (a rock border vs. aluminum sides) , obstructions, and different water presure/level.

Mrs. Greazel:  We behaved as scientists do by creating hypotheses, testing them by only changing 1 variable at a time, observing the results, and recording the results.  I asked questions to get the kids thinking during the 1st trial, and the kids quickly took over asking questions to help each other make detailed observations.

Jameson did an excellent job recording our trials.  Take a look at the videos and ask your child what observations they made. Ask them how the different variables changed the flow of the river, and what they noticed about erosion ad deposition during the trials.

Trial 1- less water

Trial 1 part 2 -more water

Trial 2- obstructions

Trial 3- slope- 1 block

Trial 3-slope-2 blocks

Trial 3- no slope

Trial 4-riverbank

Trial 5- riverbed

Math games by Nate

   This Friday, because our class did so well on our math test, we had math game day! We played math bingo, as well as double digit Top it. We also played a game where we rolled a dice 9 times and then tried to make the biggest number. We had to read numbers that reached into the 10 millions! Everyone had tons of fun playing math games! 

Landscape & Landform murals by Nico & Mrs. Greazel

Nico: We   are working on  landforms  and landscapes in Science. All of us are  super excited that we are working on landforms. We  worked in groups to make landscapes. We all made landforms like canyons,volcanic mountains,mountains,sand dunes,and rivers out of paper.

Mrs. Greazel: Once our landscapes were created, we labeled each landform. I took pictures of the kids outside on the playground and then the kids put pictures of themselves  in the landscapes zip- lining, climbing mountains and rock formations, hanging from cliffs and even bungee jumping!

We didn't stop there! We incorporated our study of prepositions into speech bubbles that explained what the kids were doing. Anzhelo exclaimed, "I'm back flipping above the cliff!"   Maeve proclaimed, "I'm zip-lining through the canyon!"

 Jakub, Amina, Nickolai, & Nate are all mountain climbing.  Check out Nico on the glacier.

Be careful, Connor, Anzhelo, and Owen!

Check out Maeve, Katie, Natalia & Mia zip-lining through the canyon, while Diana is scaling the side of the canyon.

The kids then looked at their picture and wrote about the small moment they were experiencing in the landscape.  Owen's story about hanging on the side of the cliff is a definite cliff hanger (pun intended)!  We focused on the small details that we would experience through our senses (wind hitting our face, hands burning from gripping the side of the cliff or rock formation, heart racing).  We also attempted to add juicy 4th grade words and dialogue to help our readers connect to our experience.

Faiz summed it up when he said, "We just did Science, grammar, and writing all at the same time!"

It was so exciting to see the kids synthesize all they have been learning into this fun, creative project that captured their imaginations.  They were so engrossed in the writing of these stories that they didn't want to stop.  When I announced it was time for recess, the class exclaimed "Awww, do we have to stop writing?"  That made my day!

On Friday, we shared our stories with a partner and worked on giving each other specific, helpful, respectful, and encouraging feedback to help improve each other's stories.

Nico: We are super happy that we are working on these. Our class is sailing through a lot this year about landforms.