Ms. Copolla & Ms. Fischer's
Terrific Third Graders
Properties and the BEST Value in the Financial World
Starting in mid September, the third graders will begin their first engineering unit titled A Work in Process: Improving a Playdough Process. Students will read the story called Michelle's MVP Award where they will learn about Chemical Engineering. In the story they meet a girl who designs a better way to make play dough. The activities in this unit reinforce the science concepts “solid” and “liquid” as students explore the properties of different materials—and the properties of mixtures of materials. For the final engineering design challenge students will design a process for making high-quality play dough. They will also figure out how price and value affect the design process.
Come back to see our progress!
Come back to see our progress!
Never Give Up When Engineering Card Towers
Students in the third grade will begin their year working with determination and the Engineering and Design Process. Each table was given two decks of playing cards and was tasked with designing the tallest card tower possible. This was not an easy challenge at all. You could hear me say during class, "if engineering was easy, everyone would be an engineer. Keep trying and NEVER GIVE UP!" There lesson wasn't so much the building, but the idea that they need to keep working when things get hard. It was a frustrating lesson to learn, but one that needed to be understood to successfully navigate their third grade year! We did have one group reach 9 levels high! Talk about an amazing success. There was a ton of laughter in the end! I'm proud we kept working till the end of class and NEVER GAVE UP!