We had so much fun today, the other classes turned green with envy! It was so great meeting with all of you and talking about our rock stars.
With the chapter title of ‘Escape’, everyone was pretty sure that Mrs. Frisby was going to get out of the cage. Once she got out, everything pretty much went to plan, with her warning the rats and the rats moving her house successfully. We were initially concerned that Dragon was going to chase Mrs. Frisby, but Dragon didn’t wake up at all! Tove was wondered if they were tired from chasing Mrs. Frisby, but Yianni pointed out that Dragon actually didn’t chase Mrs. Frisby at all. Paolo thought maybe Dragon ate too much, but Timo remembered that Dragon ate the sleeping powder. After the house was successfully moved, we discussed how Mrs. Frisby was feeling and Anja was sure she was happy because she was free and her house was moved. Jerome agreed, saying now she didn’t have to be worried about the tractor. Sokrates reminded the class that they still needed to be watching out for Dr. Shultz and Yianni knew that cat’s have great hearing and noses, so Dragon will be able to find them pretty easily. We’re nearing the end, so let’s hope everything gets sorted out next week!
In the book, the rats use rollers and pulleys to move the house, which the class didn’t really know a lot about. I demonstrated rollers using blocks and colored pencils, but we spent most of our building time experimenting with pulleys all over the classroom. I was expecting the class to struggle with the pulleys, but they really had a blast seeing how they worked. Anja noticed that, while it was tough to keep the rope on the wheel in the pulley, it was way easier to pull if it was on there. Paolo encouraged me to find higher places to use it, since it wasn’t great just on the side of the cart. Teddy wanted to try lifting 2 baskets on the same pulley but ultimately decided it was better to just have one string per pulley. Tove realized that, whatever direction she pulled the rope, the basket would go straight up, a pretty key realization about pulleys. I hadn’t planned on doing a simple machines exploration, but now… Wait and see!
We wrapped up our texture in paint exploration by mixing flour into the paint, which we noticed was finer than the sand, which was finer than the pencil shavings. Jerome wondered it it would smell like play-doh, since he remembered we used flour in the play-doh. After painting with it for awhile, Gia said it was kind of like play-doh paint since it was so thick. Anja noticed how soft the flour felt while Rebecca felt like it made the paint squishy. Teddy helped people dump the extra flour back in so it wouldn’t make a mess. Bisola liked the flour best of all the mix-ins because of how it didn’t change the colors and how it covered the paint afterwards. What a fun little journey.
Have a great weekend everyone and Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
