Teacher Talk: 3 in 1

It's the last week of school, and St. Ethelreda is abuzz with activity. In our final Teacher Talk post of this school year, we have 3 contributions rolled into one awesome post.

Preschool: Painted Ladies
Ms. Jordan, Ms Seaton and the Pre-3 class celebrate the arrival of spring in our classroom by watching caterpillars transform into butterflies. We welcome five (5) caterpillars to our classroom. They arrived in a small container already stocked with special food to help them grow.

Click here to see all the Preschool photos

Most of the children called the caterpillar’s worms and wanted to know why we had bugs in our classroom. I want them to understand that this is a part of our classroom learning experience. Many books were read about caterpillars and butterflies. I showed the children pictures of the different stages of butterflies and what to expect during the caterpillars transformation to become butterflies.

The children were amazed to actually see the caterpillars’ growth each day. They invited their siblings and friends from other classrooms to share their science experience. We saw the caterpillars spin what is called silk around their bodies. The silk harden and became what is called chrysalis. The caterpillars crawled to the top of the container and got into an upside down position. They stayed in this stage for five days. I removed the chrysalis from the small container and placed them into a larger home.

On the sixth day to our surprise, we had one, two, three, four, and five butterflies which developed into adult Painted Ladies. We sprinkled sugar on sliced oranges and placed them inside for the butterflies to eat. Immediately they began to eat and fly around their new home.

Art activities were also done. Each child colored a caterpillar and placed it on a pair of paper wings to make a butterfly. We combined our butterflies together and made a mobile. We pretend that our paper butterflies are flying around the classroom.

Wow! Caterpillars to butterflies right before your eyes. We also learned three new big words transformation, chrysalis and metamorphosis.

Science Experiment: The Egg Drop Challenge

Ms. Finn submitted this Teacher Talk entry about recent Junior High science experiment she had the students complete. It's called "The Egg Drop Challenge".

Click here to see all the "Egg Drop Challenge" photos

This year’s junior high science project was a technological design challenge called the “Egg Drop” in which students created a container that would prevent a raw egg from breaking when dropped from a height of 15 feet. Students used their knowledge of the concepts of gravity and Newton’s laws of motion to design their containers following the strict specification requirements for size and mass.

Although the challenge proved to be more difficult than anticipated, the project was a “smashing” success! With great anticipation, students dropped their containers (with a raw egg inside) from the balcony of the Church building. Points were assigned according to whether the egg was broken or intact and whether the container was in or out of the target area.

We congratulate the following students for their winning designs:

8th Grade

• Gevonte Clark and Mariah Wimberley – 1st
• Joseph Pointer and Raeshawn Pierce – 2nd
• Joshua Wright and Tranayle Fortineaux – 3rd

7th Grade

• Razell Cash and Robert Jackson – ***High Score for Junior High***

6th Grade

• Robert Gholston and Terrance Roberts – 1st
• Anthony Peoples and Dirk Jordan – 2nd
• Deja Starks and Dejaniria Ferguson – 3rd

3rd Grade: Study Island

Mrs. Johnson's 3rd grade class is working on our new Study Island program on-line. This program is designed to enhance students skill in Reading and Math.

Click here to see all the 3rd Grade photos!

Third grade has been studying multiplication and division of whole numbers. Study Island has different modes for students to work at their on: game or test mode.

Students log in under their own names and work at their own pace to complete a topic. As students progress through a topic, the difficulty increases.
Once a student masters a topic, they receive a blue ribbon for that topic.

Wrap-up
Thanks to all our teachers over the whole school year for your contributions to Teacher Talk and the St. Ethelreda website!