Star Lab with Mr. Musselman

Mr. Musselman performed a Star Lab show for the first graders.

He started his show by talking about the Universe.

He showed us a model of our Solar System!

He showed another model off the Sun.

He then illustrated how the Earth would be the size of a marble compared to THIS model of the Sun.

We could fit 100 Earth's across the sun and one million Earth's could fit inside the sun.

Here is our shining sun...

...and our Earth with the sun shining on it. It is now daytime in Massachusetts.

Here it is nighttime in Masachusetts. 

We learned that one full rotation of the Earth makes 1 day. 

One day is 24 hours long.  

When our Earth moves around the sun we call it an orbit. One full orbit equals one year. 

One year equals 365 days. 

Our Earth rotated as she orbited the Sun one time. 

It was a great show and next week we get to go into the starlab to see planets and constellations!!

Chick show with Ms. Pavlicek

Ms. P came in today for her annual Chick Show.  The show comes before we get an incubator with eggs in our classroom! The show began with Mrs. Ski's reading class doing reader's theater on how to care for chicks:

Then Ms. P began her show on the chicks:

Ms. P asks the age old question, "Which came first the chicken or the egg?

Introducing "The one, the only...chicken egg!" (the star of the show).

Ms. P demonstrates how strong an egg actually is by having a student and a teacher try to break the shell by squeezing them with their hands. The shape of the eggshell protects the egg from breaking when we squeeze it. That's why we have to crack it on it's side

Next, Ms. P used models to show the different sizes of eggs (from hummingbird to elephant egg).

Here is a crane egg with spots to help camouflage the egg from predators. 

Ms P. then showed us the parts of the egg. 

We did a chicken dance for a movement break. 

We discussed the difference between fertilized and non-fertilized egg. 

Then a first-grader acted as a mother hen and laid a nest full of eggs.

She pretended to lay on the eggs for 21 days to keep the eggs warm.

We learned about the inside of the incubator and how it works.

We talked about the comb and waddle on the chickens right before...

We met the Rhode Island Ren hen and...

Mr. Rooster!

It was a great show and we learned a lot about chick development and how to take care of our chicks once they are born!  Thanks Ms. P!