M4 - April Week 3

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This was Earth Day week, so we got to go to an Earth Day fair, plus children's day at the Wildlife Safari. Way fun - and lots of science!

Motion

Bridge

We've been studying The Three Billy Goats Gruff, so we decided to experiment with bridges.  We read Cross a Bridge by Ryan Ann Hunter, about different building materials.

First we created the platforms from two stacks of blocks, and then we put the bridge sheet on.  We tested the bridge with my tiny, tiny billy goats tripping and trapping to see if it would hold up...

We tried these materials:  plastic wrap, aluminum foil, paper, styrofoam, cardboard, plastic lid, and craft foam.  The  plastic wrap and the foil and the paper really did not work!  The styrofoam was light and worked the best.

Matter

Decay and Compost

We talked about recycling - what it means and what kinds of stuff you can recycle, and what you can use as compost.  I flipped through some Earth Day cards as Mom told me what they were all about.  (Mom's note - I printed these half-size, so they were cute, itty-bitty cards!)

We watched some videos on decay (http://pbskids.org/sid/videoplayer.html, look for Decay Investigation and Decay Song).  Then we went outside to the orchard to see if we could find some decayed apples from last fall.  Here's one!  (Mom's note:  we didn't have time within the week to see the whole decay process, but we will follow through with one...)

We are going to start a compost pile for our garden!  Here is a cool composting website Mom is using.

Mitosis

Plant a Tree

Well, first of all, I adopted a baby tree!  I heard it crying, so I sat real close to it and even gave it hugs!

Then we got a seedling from the Earth Day fair, and I helped dig a hole for it, and put it in the ground, and cover up the roots with dirt,

and water it with my green bucket.  Cuz that's what you got to do for baby trees to help them grow.

And Me

Balance

Did you know your eyes help you balance?  I practiced balancing on one foot this week, kind of like the flamingos we saw at Wildlife Safari.  I did really good with my eyes open...

...but it was LOTS harder with my eyes closed!  (Try it with a stopwatch if you don't believe me.)

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To celebrate Earth Day, we sang some cool songs:  What a Wonderful World (sadly, the Louis Armstrong live version got removed from YouTube for copyright reasons in the past couple of days...) and All Things Bright and Beautiful.  And we watched that Planet Earth episode we downloaded, too.  That was way cool - lots of cute baby animals and an amazing bird dance!

Oh - that Earth Day fair and Wildlife Safari excursion?  The camera battery died on us shortly after we got there.  Here are a few photos, and you may see more if we can figure out how to get photos off the cell phone.

Here I am making fish runs with big equipment - did you know that technology and big machines make good partners in protecting wildlife?

And I got to touch a real live owl!

I also made a birdhouse, with a little help...  Now we just need to make sure it doesn't fall apart and then hang it up somewhere!

We're playing along with this fun blog hop... - check it out if you're interested in more kids' activities...