September 20, 2012 Learning To Navigate

 

 We are "transitioning" nicely into the routine of second grade. We're learning how to "navigate" the seas like the Explorers of long ago and to "navigate" the world around us of reading, writing, math, science, social studies, relationships, technology and so on.

Here's a peak into what we've been up to:


 













Learning how to use home row as we type with Nimblefingers.com.

 

 Making bar  graphs of the food items brought in for the food drive. We're up to 94 items!





















While reading a readers' theater we discovered the Vikings were "very curious." They were not only raiders but they were explorers and traders.

The Vikings might have used a solar compass. We took advantage of the beautiful sunshine and made our own solar compasses. Above is a drawn picture of our experiment.

 

Here's how we did it using the Scientific Method:

 

I told them we were going outside with a water bottle, two sticks and three rocks.

 

Question: How does a solar compass work?

 

Hypothesis conversation:

     "It's the magnetic field of the earth!" (Last week we made magnetic compasses so this was a pretty good guess!)

     "It's the evaporation of the water!"

     "The stars?"

     "The sun is a star."

     "The sun!"

     "The sun is moving!"

     "I know, I know! The sun rises in the east and sets in the west."

We were getting closer.

 

Experiment stage:

     We put a water bottle in the sun and marked the end of the shadow with one rock. Fifteen minutes later we went out to mark the end of the shadow again. Someone exclaimed, "Someone moved our bottle!" Someone else said, "No, the sun is moving." And someone else said, "No, the earth is rotating!"  We came out again in fifteen minutes and marked the end of the shadow. We lined up a stick (ruler) along the rocks and found the east/west line. We lined the second stick (ruler) perpendicular to the first and found the north/south line. Using a magnetic compass we found that our experiement worked! We had found north using our solar compass!

 

Analysis: The rotation of the earth caused the shadow to move.

 

Conclusion: If we were lost we could use the sun to find north unless, of course, it was night or a cloudy day.

 

See http://www.jaymeblackmon.com/make-solar-compass

 

 

In Literacy Class with Ms. Becky, the librarian, we made purple backpacks...

 

 

...and purple purses.

 

 

We decorated them and filled them with all kinds of imaginative things.

 

 

We made old maps of the world and added compass roses...

 

 

 

...and terrible sea monsters...

 

 

...and lots of ships

 

 

...and treasure chests.

 

We'll be learning lots more about maps, about navigation and about the reasons explorers explored.