Science

We started taking notes on the textbook, which really means we started the week with some notes on how to take class notes. I lectured on Chapter 1 section 1, which introduces astronomy and discusses Earth’s rotation, orbit, and tilt on the axis. I asked the kids to write a descriptive paragraph about the seasons in their Science Writer’s Notebooks for practice writing detailed observations, and we discussed why the seasons occur. The boys love their SWNs, so I’ve given them some time to present their work to the class; in addition to the seasons assignment, they’ve written two free-topic SWN entries so far. We also spent time this week discussing lab safety.

Next week we’re doing a lab that models the seasons using styrofoam balls and flashlights, and we will move on to Chapter 1 Section 2 in the text.

We started the year with the Science Writer’s Notebook. We briefly discussed the scientific method and discussed the difference between science writing and other writing styles, and used the web to look at the notebooks of Einstein, Darwin, Newton, and Da Vinci. The boys have written and some have presented their first notebook entries.

Next week, we’ll begin textbook work with Chapter 1 Section 1 in the Astronomy textbook, which discusses Earth’s orbit and seasons.

This week we continued our Volcano unit with a “lava rock” lab, where the students examined samples of basalt, aa, pahoehoe, obsidian, and pumice. They had fun seeing our huge pumice rock float. We’re continuing through the volcano chapter of their text for the rest of the week and into next.