We took advantage of winter's brief return to wrap up our motion unit by designing and building mini sleds. I introduced the challenge by reading the book "Go Sled! Go!" by James Yang, which uses pictures to tell the story of a boy on a wild sled ride. We spent some time talking about what makes a good sled, and connecting our ideas back to the motion concepts we have investigated. Students were then given a variety of materials and encouraged to use their imaginations as they designed sleds for some of our little classroom animals. Our intent was to test the sleds outside, but after lots of hard work everyone was nervous about having the sleds get wet, so we tested inside on ramps. Students did a fantastic job of using limited resources to make some extremely creative sleds.

We spent our first morning back from vacation engaging in two Mystery Science explorations. The first activity challenged students to manipulate the strength and direction of a paper wrecking ball to knock down a "wall" of cups without hitting the row of houses behind the wall. In the second, they protected a model mountain town from a falling boulder by redirecting the boulder. A row of paper houses was set up at the base of a cardboard mountain. Pairs of students had five push pins that they tried to place to strategically direct the boulder (a large marble) away from the houses and into a cup. This activity was particularly engaging and some students continued playing through choice time.