Magnets are Magnificent!

It is truly amazing what can happen when you pose a question to a child. The wheels start to turn in their brains, their bodies start to move and voila... they work until they discover the answer! We began our studies on Magnets and I decided to do an Inquiry Based Approach to our learning. At each center I posed a question and the students had to, through hands on activities, figure out the answer! The best part is all the smiles on their faces!

Students were asked "What can you build with Magnets?" They quickly realized.. you can build a lot! These students here had created a HUGE chain of magnets that had to be put together using the proper poles of the magnets. They also discovered.. there is a breaking point! When they went to lift up their creation.. it fell apart!! You can see the devastation on their faces. Don't worry, they got over it quickly and began building again!

At this station students were asked "What is magnetic in our classroom?" The answer: a lot! Students went around testing all sorts of things in our classroom. They recorder their results. How do you know if it is magnetic you ask? Well they thought "If the magnet sticks to it, that means it is magnetic!" 

Students were asked "Are all metals magnetic?" Students decided to test the materials that were provided to figure out the answer to the question. They recorded their results on the sheet and realized that not all metals are magnetic! Some students were very surprised by this information! Another question that was asked was "Are all magnets the same strength?" I left a few different magnets that were different sizes and shapes. Students thought they would test the magnets by determining how many paper clips the magnet could hold. The answer: the bigger the magnet the stronger its strength! 

More building fun! 

Our thoughts on Because of Winn-Dixie

The students had so much to say and share when we read Because of Winn-Dixie... Here is a peek at some of our responses!

Our character study of Opal

Students drew pictures to represent some of Opal's characteristics!

Connections, lists and compare and contrasting! We can do it all.

Questioning while we read is so important. Here are some examples of our thin and thick questions. These responses are about a mistake the students have made in the past. Uh oh... 

Students had to find evidence in the story to support their pictures.

 

These students believed Opal had a big heart.

A connection response to Winn-Dixie howling.

Because of Winn-Dixie...

For the past two months we have been reading a wonderful novel called Because of Winn-Dixie! Each day I have read a few chapters aloud to the students and they were able to follow along with their own book. It was a page turner and kept the students always wanting more (just what us teachers love)! The story is about a young girl who moves to a new town and has no friends. She unexpectedly meets a furry friend Winn-Dixie. She decides to claim the dog as her own to save him from the pound and little did she know it would change her entire life... The story had excellent themes of love, friendship, abandonment, and looking deeper into people and accepting them for who they are (flaws and all)! We had amazing conversations and students had very deep thinking
questions that sparked awesome conversations and stories in our classroom. We had a reading response journal where students could write their connections, feelings and thoughts down. We are gearing up to watch the movie, so we can compare and contrast the plot line in both!