AIS - Grade 2

This week the students designed their Rube Goldberg machines and started testing out the different parts. They experimented with ramps and tunnels at different inclines. Also, they learnt how to arrange machines at different heights for maximum effect and learnt they need to record their attempts, whether it was a failure or success. Some students realised that perhaps their ideas were a bit hard to execute in real life or that the order of their chain reaction needed to be changed. Next week the children will finalise their tests of their Rube Goldberg, write down any changes they made to improve it, as well as a reflection on what went well or didn't . If you have Hot Wheels or Tomicars at home, we really need some!                                                        AC has 4 parts to her machine so far.  AC's Rube Goldberg machine starts with a car going down a ramp. RI wanted to start with a screw (a bottle with string an an eraser on the end that swings around) that wou

Chain chain chain, chain of fools. No, I’m not Aretha Franklin, and we certainly aren’t fools in Grade 2.  But we did learn about how every force has an equal or opposite force. Examples are a person bouncing a ball and the ground pushes it back up. Or a person pushing against a wall and the wall has a force pushing back. We looked at pulleys, made paper clip chains with magnets, pinwheels and origami frogs that jump. In library time we did paired reading about simple machines and later did a sorting activity to sort machines into categories such as pulley, lever, wedge etc. Today I introduced the kids to the Rube Goldberg Machine and they learnt that they need to design one for their summative assessment for this Unit of Inquiry.  In math, we have used our knowledge of repeat addition to move into multiplication and from there, division. We also did some 2 step worded problems. In literacy we looked at some common but irregular words, suffixes in adjectives and verbs, and a spelling q

This week Grade 2 continued to do experiments and learn how to record our results. The children learnt how to set out their page with a science procedural, similar to writing down a cooking recipe. They had to include: A question - e.g. What will happen when you put a coin inside a balloon, tie it up and spin it around? A prediction Materials Method Result We tested out whether a racing car will travel faster on a smooth surface such as the classroom floor, or a bumpy surface such as corrugated paper or sand paper. Strangely, our results weren't conclusive. This probably had to do with the level of force each child used to shoot the car off. We tried using a low table a ramp, but there was a gap between the table and the floor which stopped it from going very far on the floor.  On Friday we designed our own marble run in the class using cardboard tubes, toilet paper rolls, cardboard boxes et cetera. We tested it about 5 times and found that bumpy pieces of tape kept stopping the ma