Having Fun with Simple Machines

On Monday we welcomed a new student. Shintaro joined us from Japan. It is wonderful to have him as part of our grade 2 class. Welcome Shintaro!

On Monday we had fun experimenting with simple pulley systems. We discovered that the more pulleys we used...the easier it was to lift a heavy load.

 On Tuesday we mixed it up a bit with our grade 5 buddies. We found a new buddy by completing a question and answer matching task about simple machines. Then we enjoyed buddy reading and some singing together.

We have been working really hard this week reinforcing our understanding of multiplication and creating multiplication cities using arrays. We have also been busy with procedure writing - this time creating our own 'Revolting Recipe'. We are becoming far more skilled at using google drive on the ipads to publish and edit our work.

On Thursday, we had an opportunity to use all of the materials we brought in from home to create a Rube Goldberg Machine (a complicated machine designed to perform a simple task.

Rube Goldberg was a former engineer who became famous for his quirky contraption based cartoons.

Children had to design a machine in a group that would push a ball into a cup or ring a bell. There was plenty of trial and error...all part of the creative cycle!

Trial one by this creative group!



Trial two...after a slight modification...success!