Homecoming Assembly

Mrs. Ristow took the 4th and 5th grade classrooms to the Homecoming Assembly to do their Alanson Viking dance for the Middle School and High School students. Although a few were nervous, they did an outstanding job! Go Alanson Elementary!!! 

Volume

Our class worked with graduated cylinders and water to find the volume of an unusually shaped object. 

Student of the Month for January

Congratulations to Sydney for being our 4th grade Student of the Month!!

Multiplication Games

Students are practicing multiplication!

Lego Lab

Working together each group created a Lego object. Within each group students were given identical blocks and a random number of blocks- different from the other groups. They needed to find the mass of one block and then estimate the mass of all blocks together. 

After that, each group created a Lego object using all of their blocks. Then they found the mass. Students had to use math to help them find the mass of their Lego object and also find the difference between their estimate and their object. 

Following that part of the experiment, each group disassembled their object, made a new estimate and weighed the pieces on their mass scale. 

Today we will take a look at our findings, compare them and see if the Legos' weighed the same before and after. 

Writing

Students have been working hard this week to make their previous writing entries stronger. They are doing this by pushing their thinking and questioning their earlier entries. 

Weight vs. Mass

We have been learning about mass but Tuesday we began discussing weight. We learned that weight is measured by the pull of gravity. Using the pan balance we found the mass of a bag of salt and then proceeded to find the weight using a spring scale. Today we will continue talking about mass and weight using Legos and our pan balance. 

Exploration of Mass

Yesterday, students learned about mass by doing an experiment using a Kleenex box, golf ball, paper towel roll, 2 gelatin boxes, a meter stick, and masking tape. Using force from the golf ball we measured which gelatin box went further, empty or full. After that we graphed each groups findings to see which box went further and discussed why. 

We are FINALLY back!!

After two very cold days off, we are back!! The kids and I had a great day. Everyone was well behaved and ready to be back to school.

Yesterday we started a new science unit, discussing properties of matter. We have many experiments coming up to understand the difference between mass and weight.