I've had a lot of great parties in the last 20 years, but this was a very special one. The kids were an absolute pleasure to host, ate up all the food, and played games so sweetly. We kicked off the party with full-group riddles and etymology reviews. It was a wonderful afternoon together! They will certainly be missed!!! (: Miss Hammond
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Value-Conscious Consumers Should Heed MI ACT Students' Recommendations
Mason Intermediate fourth grade gifted students in Amy Hammond’s class shared recommendations for brands that held the most value during the Mason Consumer Products Fair May 15. The students shared the results of their product testing to demonstrate which brands can save consumers money. Attendees of the fair were also able to participate in their own testing, and learn if higher cost means higher quality when it comes to items like glue sticks, spray cleaners, toilet paper and more. The morning of the fair, the students stood by their display boards and ‘pitched’ consumers their recommendations. The fourth graders chose their own experiment methods for testing the products such as wiping cherry pie filling with different cleaning sprays, or pouring a cup of water into a diaper and then testing its wetness. The criteria for deciding which brands were best varied as well. Some experiments determined the winner by time - how long can tape hold 20 quarters? Others used quantity as the measurement - how many rolls of pennies until the plastic wrap tears? The students’ research started six weeks prior, followed by a paper towel classroom experiment. Students were independent in running their own experiment, which involved hypothesis, step-by-step experiment planning, collecting data, graphing results, drawing a conclusion, and creating a list of the top five reminders to the consumer. National, store, and generic brands for 10 products were tested. National brands included Pampers, Scotch tape, Saran wrap, Elmer's glue stick, Charmin, 409 spray, and more. "This culminating Consumer Fair showcases all their hard work. From research and fact finding to being scientists in the classroom and finally to master editors, we wanted our display boards and our product tests to show the high standard we held ourselves to,” said Hammond. “With this kind of effort comes some pride, and it was written all over their faces!” DEAR PARENTS,
Please click here for pictures from our recent product experiments. Then read these 4 little paragraphs (: http://mi4thgradeact.weebly.com/miss-hammonds-class ETYMOLOGY --> We recently finished our word for U--Umbrageous. Yes, we are reaching the end of the alphabet! Who knew words could be so much fun? Or that kids would be bringing me library book with the words cacophony, nostalgia, and bioluminescent? We have created a board in the classroom with lots of great examples of etymology words the students have found! FUN! Want something to talk about around the dinner table? Ask them these wonderful Greek and Latin roots: scope (to look at), quint (five), auto (self), bellum (war), helios (sun), diluvian (flood), post (after), phone (sound/voice), script (write), tele (far off), luna (moon), bio (life), trope (turn), cyclo (circle), jour (day), lumin (light), graph (write), photo (light), deluge (flood), ante (before). For a bonus, see if they can name all the words from A-U (: CONSUMER PRODUCT TESTING --> Over the last couple days, we have put on the hat of 'Product Tester' and put name brands to the test. Are they worth the extra money? Do they do a better job? Is there evidence behind their claims? We will compare Name brand vs Store brand vs Generic brand of toilet paper...paper plates...bandaids...diapers...tape... And we can't wait to share our results with you! DISPLAY BOARD --> Students will arrange and exhibit many aspects of their research and experiment on a display board. These tasks, which will be done in class, will include writing a hypothesis, summarizing their research facts, detailing the steps of their experiment, illustrating their results with graphs, sharing their idea for an improvement they would suggest for the product, and finally, wrapping up the project with a conclusion. This display board, along with a fun speech about their results, will be awaiting you at the Consumer Fair.... CONSUMER FAIR --> Parents, teachers, and peers will come through the KIVA in May where ACT students will not only be displaying an array of product testing results, but they will also stand by their display board and share an 'elevator pitch' or short-and-sweet report of their findings. I will be listening up! Can I save money with cheaper but as efficient paper plates? I'm always looking for ways to save money (: I hope you have a wonderful week! Feel free to reach out to me anytime for anything! ~Miss Hammond As promised in August, students who type 40 blogs, or letters to the authors of their 40 books, will receive a "celebration" in class. They get their favorite snacks along with a book of their blogs to take home. Congratulations to these hard workers! Pictures will be added each week as more students will qualify as time goes on! Thanks parents for all your encouragement! It's been fun!! Before we branch off and go different ways with our Consumer Fair products, every student went through the testing process together using 3 different brands of paper towels. Students were given 1 of 4 areas to test: strength, absorbency, speed of absorbency, and reusability. Each group wrote out a step-by-step plan to scientifically measure each of their 3 paper towels with identical methods. Then, they carried out their experiments. Finally, they charted their results and created a comparison table describing how each towel performed. The mathematical calculations were equally interesting as they determined that 5 sheets of the generic brand costs the same as 1 sheet of the national brand. But is the lack of quality worth it? (; We'll see you at the Annual Consumer Fair in May where we will bring you the results of many other products such as diapers, glue sticks, paper plates, and tape. Here are some pictures from our Paper Towel Testing: On our classroom wall, we have a list of all the parachute winners since the 2005/2006 school year. Today we added a few more! School, class, life...it's a balance of work and play. I also try to balance activities in our classroom. Writing, reading, and arithmetic...all good! But it's also good to get up out of our seat sometimes -- build, dream, create, problem-solve, cooperate, merge ideas, and have fun competing. Today, students had the same 35 materials to choose from. After each team decided on which 6 they wanted to build with, the competition was on! We sent them down two-at-a-time from the ceiling with a double bracket, NCAA-style championship! As we move from our Advertising Unit to our Product Testing Unit, we will begin turning our classroom into a science laboratory. We're collecting data and drawing conclusions like true scientists do! I've included a few pictures from our public speakers---real life engineers that brought real world application into our classroom!
GOAL SETTING
Look for a poster that's coming home today! There are instructions on the back, but basically I'm looking forward to your family getting involved and having a daily open dialogue about your child's goal. For the next 7 days, I'd like you to talk about something pertaining to the goal. Students will get a prize if they bring in 7 signatures next Thursday (one for each day you discussed it). I'm setting a goal, too.....do you have a goal? (: DECEMBER SPEECHES I've been ruminating about their speeches! They did such a nice job! I want to take this opportunity to thank all the families that came in. It was a great day and meant so much to your children. Thank you for ALL the ways you support them!! BOOK BLOGS We continue to progress through our 40 BOOK CHALLENGE. Kids are reading, they are typing blogs, and I am handing out beads. FUN! How can you help? Please ask them these questions tonight: What book was your last book blog about? What is included in a blog? (letter to the author about two things you liked and one thing you would change) Approximately how many beads have you earned? Which bead genre do you hope to earn next? Approximately how many blogs have you typed? ETYMOLOGY We had a friendly Pop Quiz today. They know dozens of Green and Latin terms, at this point. Ask your kiddo to name all our words from A to N, antediluvian to nostalgia. They can do it! **Your child will get a treat if you shoot me an email letting me know how they did on these answers! Thanks and have a fantastic afternoon! |
Mar @ A Glance
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