Thursday, February 2, 2017

Rights, Responsibilities, and Rules Transitions to Energy

This week fourth graders got started on the How the World Works unit, which focuses on Energy. However, on Wednesday, an opportunity to revisit Rights, Responsibilities and Rules came up and we took it.

Genevieve Bassett, a high school teacher at St. Mary's, visited. Ms. Bassett participated in the recent Women's March in Tokyo and shared her experience with us about the March and her thoughts about taking action in general. 




During the Rights, Responsibilities, and Rules unit, children learned not to take rights for granted. Although the Convention on the Rights of the Child has been signed by most countries in the world, it is our responsibility to ensure that rules uphold rights for all. The fourth graders bombarded her with lots of excellent questions at the end of her presentation.

One activity that some fourth graders participated in to get started thinking about energy involved sorting energy related phrases by whether it seemed more true or more false.


In this way, various misconceptions or issues about energy came out, giving us an opportunity to debunk and/or rethink them. I captured a little. Please see for yourself: 




Finally, fourth graders got started thinking about energy this week by creating "toys". Putting them together and messing around with them gave them the opportunity to contemplate forms of energy in everyday life. We will consolidate that knowledge in discussion and other activities by considering how energy moves (transfers and transformations). Hopefully, your child will be able to explain those terms to you in the coming days.




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