pulleys, pulleys, pulleys

Hello,

We did a lot of work with pulleys today.  We changed the direction of the force, the angle of the pulleys, and the size of the pulleys.  We created fixed and movable pulleys.  We made pulleys that could increase or decrease the amount of force needed to do the same job.  Much of this was done with the Lego kits that I just acquired from Ebay.  Lego used to make these great kits for schools devoted to one simple machine.  I got ten of the pulley kits and my early feedback on them is that they are awesome.  I think the kids will understand pulleys more fully this year.  I have another day to show some of the mechanical advantage set-ups, but their basic understanding is already ahead of what I've been able to teach in the past. 

Spelling words went home tonight.  We really had the have and the have-nots on the last test.  Only 2 kids got between a 70 and a 90.  Most aced it or flunked it.  There were the usual amount of top grades, but an unordinarily high amount of low grades.  I think some kids might have gone on vacation early.  Back up the bus. 

We have a ton to accomplish these last few weeks.  I will be cramming more social studies and science into our reading/writing times.  That doesn't mean that we will be doing much less of those, only that they will be highly content related. 

We will be headed over to Crimmins Field on Friday to witness "Pickett's Charge."  Please fill in a permission slip.  These are necessary because we will be walking off of school grounds.   It looks like a regular field trip permission slip, but you can write a separate note if you haven't seen it come out of the backpack.

Have a good night,

Mr. Shea