In our study of apples, with the Ladybugs, we observed 4 different kinds of apples, recorded their attributes, tasted them and recorded our experience. Then we made a bar graph of our favorite kinds. Guess which apple had the most bars? Honey Crisp! Afterwards we dehydrated the left over apples and ate them the next day. We noticed that the juice from the apples was gone. Where did it go? Next week we will talk about the Water Cycle and learn about evaporation!

                          We had a delicious birthday celebration this week! Our first 6 year old!

With our mentors this week we built mazes and used the small robotic Hexbugs to run through the maze. We had a lot of questions. Could the Hexbugs learn the maze? Did they have a pre-programmed set of directions they would follow every time? Are Hexbugs programable? How strong is a Hexbug? Can you build a maze that a Hexbug cannot escape except by the way you want them to go? Would a more intelligent Hexbug have better luck in the maze? Would it make a difference if the bugs could climb? Lots of discovery today!

 As a culminating project to our study of houses students designed and built gingerbread houses. Although they are inedible, they were created with great care and detail. You can notice doors, windows, chimneys, fences, people, and snow on these homes!

 As part of our study of houses we made paper origami doll houses. We designed in the inside on one side and the outside on the other. We then set the houses up as part of an entire neighborhood. We had families going to work, school, to the hospital, post office, and police station. Several days went by in the neighborhood. Students had friends over to play and had schedules to keep as they constructed the rules of their own town.

 So many exciting stations for Dot Day today! It was inspiring to participate in an event with almost 10 million others in 169 countries around the world. A very special event all about trying even when something seems too hard. A good lesson for us all.

Welcome to the 2017-18 blog for the Bumblebees class!

We are very excited to be starting another year and the first seven days have been wonderful. Today we explored helicopters. Working with our buddies we created paper helicopters that fly. We learned about the forces of gravity, air resistance, thrust as we threw them into the air and wing design to make the rotors spin on their descent.

It was also Bike Day and everyone had a great time riding bikes and trikes and scooters. We graphed all the things we brought from home and found that we had the most helmets and bikes with training wheels and  the least number of tricycles. Lots of vehicles powered by kids today.

- Mimi Lewis