Simply Simple Machines

Dear Parents,
We began our week, with heat, and a review of six simple machines: lever, wedge, wheel and axle, pulley, screw, and inclined plane. We asked the class if they thought they could pick up a teacher. The class said if everyone helped together they could. Everyone got together and tried but did not succeed. We looked at our pictures of simple machines and asked which one might help pick up a teacher. Some children thought that a pulley might work, but we did not have a pulley set up yet. Someone guessed a lever. We created a lever using some blocks from the block area and a long, long piece of wood. It took three students on one end of the board to pick up one teacher on the opposite end. Yes! The class can pick up a teacher with the help of a simple machine. We remembered that a machine is something that makes work easier.

We read This Is The House That Jack Built, Jack’s House, and We Build A Climber. We compared the climber in the book to our jungle gym outside. They were similar, yet different.
While half the class balanced, crawled, and tumbled with Natalie, the rest of us added smaller pieces to our wood sculptures. We painted our sculptures silver, gold, or copper.
On Thursday the electricians came and showed us their tools. Two electricians had a race to see who could screw in seven screws faster. Tom used a regular Philips head screwdriver and Ryan used a battery-operated drill. The class predicted correctly that the battery drill would be faster. The children took turns pushing the button on the drill. Tom and Ryan showed us how they connect an outlet using black, white, and green wires. The class sat attentively during the entire presentation which lasted for a good thirty minutes. They had several questions and comments: How does it work? My mama and daddy have a tool box. I have a power drill at my house. What is that screw for? I have no tools at my house. I have a titanium drill!
Afterwards, we showed them our pretend tool boxes and thanked them. Then they left to go back to work. We asked the children what they could recall. Several children said, “Do not touch electric wires.” and “Get a grownup to touch the wire.”
We went outside to play in the snow flurries. Many children ran around roaring like dinosaurs. We had to remind a few dinosaurs to keep their paws on their own bodies.
We examined our bike and a tricycle to locate the wheel and axle. We looked at a toy car to see how many wheels and axles it had. In the big room we rode our wheels and axles. Others played with our toy tool boxes on the stage. There was a lot of hammering and sawing of the stage which seemed in need of repair.
We hooked a pulley up to the ceiling near the block area, and everyone had a turn to lift a big wooden block. Many children were excited to show how strong they were by pulling the pulley. Some asked for help from another friend. We also used two pulleys on each side of the big room to move scarves across the room. The children used clothespins, another simple machine, to clip the scarves to the rope.
It was a simply marvelous week,

Therese

If I Had a Hammer

Dear Parents,

On Wednesday we played outside for three hours. It was cold. We were cold. The hand warmers did a great job of keeping our fingers toasty. Mostly we just ran around to stay warm. We found many chunks of ice which were immediately smashed with all our might.

We played a few rounds of Ring Around the Rosie, and we all fell down. Several children pretended to be trains and needed new engines because theirs fell out. Once they were repaired, the engines ran around the yard some more.

We tried to dig in the sandbox but the sand was frozen solid. Instead of digging we scraped. It was frozen two days this week but that did not stop friends from working.

On Thursday we read two books titled Machines. We made a list of machines we know: clock, sewing machine, hammer, saw, drill, and pizza maker, among others. One person said they have no machines at their house.

We looked at pictures of six simple machines and defined machines as something that makes work easier. We reviewed our list to see if this was true and indeed it was! We used scissors to cut paper. We talked about scissors being a compound machine because they have wedges and a lever. We also discussed what makes machines work. Some need electricity, others need gas, and simple machines require lots of elbow grease. We explained what elbow grease means.
We read The Lion and the Bird. We noticed that the lion used two machines when working in his garden, a hoe and a rake.

On Friday we used a hammer. We hammered in the morning, we did not hammer in the evening, but y'all can at home if you like. We hammered nails randomly into one of our xmas tree stumps. We noticed it began to look like a face, so we decided to add hair made of nails. The children quickly came up with names for our creation: Hammerhead, Nail Man (as opposed to mailman), and Woodman. The names made some of us laugh as we took turns hammering.

It was a good cold week, as far as cold weeks go,

Therese