Making our own rocks

Generosity
So much of the success of our program depends on the willingness of parents to be involved in our activities. A big mahalo to all of you who volunteered your time and pumpkins to make our learning and activities special. You are apprecitated!

Scholastic Books
The books arrived today, so they will be coming home on Monday. You should have seen the children's excitement when they arrived at the classroom.  These kids love to read!

Inquiry
Mr. McCormick dazzled us with a great PowerPoint presentation along with some amazing petrified wood, ancient shark teeth, very large, sparkling crystals, an interesting chunk of fool's gold, and his great technique, which gets everyone involved.  Thank you, Peter!!  Sharing your knowledge and interests with the children is a special gift you give.

On Thursday, we actually made our own sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks.  The children each chose a crayon, stripped off the paper, and used scissors and dull knives to scrape and break off pieces, which represented sediments (clay, sand, gravel, and rocks).  We folded our sediments in foil and stomped on them, hoping they would meld together into sedimentary rocks, but it actually took the pressure of a hammer against concrete to create this type of rock.  Then we heated the colorful sedimentary rocks just enough to turn them into a brown paste. Next we applied pressure again to form our metamorphic rocks.  The heat caused some of the sediments to melt completely, forming igneous rocks.  What a hands-on way to learn about the rock cycle.

Today we created the earth.  The student representing the inner core stood very rigid to dramatize the dense ball of metal.  Three other students joined hands around the core and moved counterclockwise while waving their arms up and down to represent the hot liquid outer core.  Still more students joined hands around them and chanted "hot liquid" to represent the mantle.  The last group of students made a circle facing out to represent the crust.  They chanted "moving plates" in a deep voice.  What a fun learning activity.

Learning Trip
The children will have an exciting learning trip to the Lucoral Museum in Waikiki on Tuesday, October 14.  They will see rocks, minerals, crystals, and fossils, as well as participate in fun activities that will reinforce what we are learning about the rock cycle.

Posted on October 3, 2008 2:58 PM | Permalink