Surviving the PSSAs

Over the last few weeks, we have been working very hard to complete the PSSAs in reading, math, and now science. All the hard work does have its perks because we have been able to have some time to be creative and to play. We just wanted to share a little snapshot of some of the things we have been doing to "just be kids" after all of our hard work!

We just played! Tag, gymnastics, and learning how to make grass whistle were all fun to try!

We also did some creative indoor activities! While this is one of our successful runs, we had many other attempts at some crazy domino creations!

The Scientific Process

This week we started looking at the scientific process in more detail. The scientific process is the steps a scientist takes to come up with a do an experiment. We started by looking at the first two steps: observing and asking questions. Many people think it takes something special to be a scientist, but all you really have to be is observant and curious. You have to look at things carefully, think about what you know, and then ask questions!

To get some hands on experience with this, we split into five teams. Each team was given a wrapped box, and we had to use four of our five senses (no tasting, please) to figure out what was in the box. We are working on being very specific with our observations so we can explain why we came up with the inference we stated for the contents of the box. We ended up finding out that being a scientist can be very challenging, but it is also a lot of fun!

This small orange box made lots of people wonder about the contents!

Although this box was bigger, it didn't feel very heavy.

It was difficult to write our observations because we were all pretty sure we knew what was in this box!

For it's small size, this box was pretty heavy!