Tending Silkworms in Nursery 3
Lately in Nursery 3 we have been observing and caring for various small animals. About 20 days ago we adopted ten tiny silkworms needing constant care because the amount of fresh mulberry tree leaves that they needed to eat was just unbelievable!
The children worked around the clock for two weeks, taking turns to feed them and clear their home from leftovers whilst watching them grow at an incredible pace… Then one morning we observed that some of them had stopped eating and so many children asked, ‘Are they okay?’ It was a clear sign that they were ready to change into chrysalides. New words such as ‘cocoon’ and ‘transformation’ were heard and learned through reading books and watching educational videos while children began wondering how many days we should wait until we see the first butterflies coming out!
Meanwhile, everyone wondered about the colors and physical features of butterflies and some of the children spontaneously began making simple drawings of butterflies, ladybugs, caterpillars, spiders, and so forth. While waiting for them to hatch out of their cocoons, we also took care of a giant pet snail called Olive Oil and of a mommy and daughter gerbils who stayed with us for a couple of days as visiting pets.
Ms. Adriana
Nursery 3 Teacher
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Wacky Races In Grade 2!
Grade 2K have been exploring movement in their Science lessons. We were also due a new Art topic… so we put Science and Art together and came up with WACKY Racers! We were inspired by an old cartoon, old enough to have been around when Miss Katharine was little! We have each designed and built a Wacky racer and we are going to race them next week!
Katharine Knott
Grade 2K teacher
La misteriosa vita dei Germo’GLI’
I bambini e le bambine di Grade 2K hanno festeggiato il ritorno a scuola e l’arrivo della primavera scoprendo la misteriosa vita dei germogli, fatta d’acqua, sole e… dal suono dolce “gli”!
Grade 5 studies NASA’s Perseverance Rover
You could have heard a pin drop as the Grade 5 students awaited the 7 minutes necessary for NASA’s Perseverance Rover to enter Mars’ atmosphere and descend to its surface on February 18th, after approximately seven months in flight. Echoing the cheer of the crew at NASA headquarters, the students experienced first-hand the core motivations which push exploration forward… the never-ending desire and curiosity to know more about our world and beyond.
As the students await news of signs of ancient life and rock and regolith samples from the Red Planet, they have been doing some exploring of their own, carrying out research about conditions on the fourth planet from the sun, and examining raw images of Mars sent to Earth from the Rover. Like the engineers at NASA, they’ve designed and built a helicopter, like the model attached to the Rover, that is deployed to places the Rover can’t reach. More importantly, the students have worked in teams to adjust the performance of their first helicopter model, calibrating the rotor blades and the angles of incidence formed between the rotor and its body. Students on distance learning contributed to the process, sharing their observations and hypotheses, and demonstrating their constructions.
Needless to say, NASA’s ground-breaking mission in outer space has given both students and teachers lots to wonder about here on Earth, and its findings could very likely change our understanding of the universe. The budding aerospace engineers are deep in inquiry, asking some pretty tough questions. As adults, we don’t always have the answers, but embracing the curiosity together with our students sets us on the quest together, discovering more each day about our universe. In their enthusiasm, the students are already looking forward to a day when the “I” in UIS doesn’t just stand for “international”, but includes “interplanetary” students as well!
Mara Tramontin
Head of Elementary School and Grade 5 Teacher
Strong and Stable Structures
Grade 3 has been exploring strong and stable structures in Science over the past few past weeks. One of the ways to understand more was working with cardboard tubes. First the students worked in pairs to identify the most stable and the least stable. Then with limited materials (dried beans, plasticine and toothpicks), they tried out different ideas of how to make the tube more stable. The conclusion was that by adding weight to the base (dried beans) and making the base wider (plasticine and toothpicks) the unstable tube became more stable, and more firmly fixed to the table when it was moved back and forth.
Paola Gandrus
Grade 3 Teacher
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Reptile Mosaics
We have been learning about the growth and changes of animals. We have classified animals, learned about their characteristics and unique facts, studied their life cycles and changes they go through growing up, as well as the way they care for their young ones. As a cross-curricular activity with art, we decided to make mosaics depicting reptiles. First, the students drew the reptile of their choice using a pencil. Most drew them by memory and others decided to research on their devices to find reptile pictures that inspired them the most. They then cut the colored paper of their choice in small squares and they glued it on their designs. Finally, they continued to develop their fine motor skills by cutting their reptiles and gluing them on another piece of card paper. Well done, Grade 2, on your hard work, persistence, and patience, as this project needed several days to be completed!
Ms. Artemis Stergiou
Grade 2A Teacher
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Fibonacci Day
The Middle school students worked very hard on their Fibonacci projects to celebrate the birthday of Fibonacci last Monday. I was impressed with how well written and researched the articles proved to be and the Presentations made the whole day come alive. The students were very receptive and enthusiastic to see the work done by their peers. The projects were done with extreme precision and it showed, as the work presented was some of the best I have seen considering the unusual subject; the students were creative and thorough in their research about how and where the Fibonacci sequence is found. The whole school student body should be thanked for their enthusiasm and hard work, they all have a great deal of which to be proud. I know that if our students show the same level of dedication to their endeavors their future is assured.
Mrs. Savoini Middle School Social Studies, Gr. 8 Literature teacher
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Super Scientists in Grade 5!
Exploring electricity, the Grade 5’s started off the year by delving into the world of energy conservation. The students learned the differences between parallel and series circuits, how both types of circuits work and what happens when one path of electricity doesn’t flow. The budding scientists were able to create their own circuits online using Google Classroom, then transferring their knowledge to building circuits in class. Finally, as a culminating activity, they set out to write about the two types of circuits and excitedly created their own hands-on circuit examples as their final project. As we approach the Christmas season, the students will be able to explain why some lights stay on even if one light is broken. Seek out the Grade 5 electricians for help in this area!
Rebecca Hallmark
Grade 5 teacher
Grade 2 Scientists at Work!
We had a great time before Christmas doing lots of experiments for our exploration of liquids and solids. We made gloop and decorated Christmas trees, brewed up Christmas Slime, and constructed a snow globe!
We also did an experiment that turned solid into a solution and then back into solid again, but in the form of crystals! We dissolved salt in warm water and then designed a way of hanging a candy cane made of pipe cleaners above the solution using newspapers. As the solution soaked up the pipe cleaner, the water evaporated, leaving us with salt crystals!
We looked at these under a microscope and then carried out our own careful drawings of our observations.
Christmas Science was really good fun!
Katherine Knott
G2 Teacher
