Some GREAT STEM discoveries!

A few weeks ago we were working a lot with decimal numbers and how to write, say and compare them. On Tuesday, table group #6 came up with a brilliant way to represent decimal numbers. Their task was to find four decimal numbers between 1.34 and 1.36.

As you can see they drew pictures of each number and correctly put the decimal numbers in order from least to greatest. They had one whole represented with a large 3-D cube, one tenth is a flat, one hundredth is a "stick" (tens rod) and one hundredth is a small cube. (This only works if we are clear on what the one whole is represented with). Well done!

We have moved on to multiplication now and have come up with several methods to help us solve multiplication problems.

Several students taught the class "their way" of solving a multiplication problem and we have been practicing these different methods for the last two weeks. 

  One of our many methods is what we call Lorenne's way or the "Break Apart" method.

 We just had Andrew teach us his way a few days ago, which is the standard algorithm.

Last week, we learned a lot about product research and how it correlates with what chemical engineers do. We were assigned a problem, which was to help a juice company come up with a formula for their new juice flavor: "Strawberry Orange".

Here were our top 3 choices that we voted on as a class.

We had a 4th grade class come in and vote on their favorite color. We then asked them questions to further conduct our product research.

This week, our next problem/task was to create a high quality play dough. We are working on improving different processes to see if we can create a high quality play dough that is similar to the kind you buy in the store.

We tested several different recipes and processes. Today, the students got to test out their own and see if they improved our low-quality play dough process. As you can see, it got a little messy. It sure was fun to see the students going through the engineering design process with making play dough!

After several different experiments, students had to write down the final process that they thought would create a high quality play dough. I was pretty impressed with how well some of our groups did!

Reminders: Spelling test tomorrow

Homework Club party tomorrow! 

(I can't wait to surprise my students with what we have planned!)