Simple Machines

My students sure LOVE themselves some science fun, :) so we have had a blast with simple machines this week! We started out with our pals Annie and Moby from Brain Pop.  Then we watched a great episode all about simple machines with Bill Nye the Science Guy.  That Bill Nye is sure humerous!  The room was brimming with giggles. :) Here is the link to check it out.

We have been working on two big projects to go with this unit.  An amazing flip flap book and a marshmallow launch!

Theses fantastic books came from an amazing teacher, Jane Feener.  Thank you!

On the cover the students illustrated an example of each of the six simple machines.

Then on the inside, each simple machine got its own mini flap book where we wrote about it and gave examples.  We also have key vocabulary words and a pocket to keep our simple machines booklet.  The informational text booklet is where we gathered most of our information.

The finished products turned out to be super cool!  I'm amazing by the effort the students have been demonstrating lately.  They are starting to look like third graders, -tear :)

After we filled our heads with knowledge about simple machines the students worked with a partner to create a marshmallow launcher!  The collaboration, creativity, and problem solving was priceless.  I really should have taken a video to share!  Shouts of, "I got it!" and "Ohhh I need a fulcrum!" and "How about this idea?!" were the talk of the day.

Later we measured the distance each launcher could sling a marshmallow and graphed the results.  Can you believe one catapulted 30 feet!?  I was shocked!  Thank you Jennifer Maschari for the excellent resource!

Wow, what a week!  My brain is buzzing, my heart is full, and I am officially exhausted!