The class is going to make marble runs.  The marble run has to have all six simple machines, all four types of motion, the marble has to slow down, stop, start again, and speed up. But, the twist is that we do not have a track.  We have to make our own track out of junk.  Before we make our runs we made plans for them to make we had all the requirements.

About a week ago, the class did a video.  It was about simple machines.  We made pictures to go along with the words and the reading partners helped each other.  The favorite part of the project was planning what to draw because it was challenging for some of us.

This is Part 2 of Sign of the Beaver, a story retold by all of our class.  To make this video, we read the chapters, then we decided what the main ideas were, and then we drew a picture of the main ideas from every chapter and wrote a summary about our pictures.  The best part was drawing the picture because you get to draw something before you write about it.

We have started our next PYP unit, Culture Clash.  This unit is focused on Michigan History, the culture of the Native Americans that lived here and what happened when the Europeans and their culture entered the picture.  The novel we are reading is The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Spear.  As a way to think deeper about the story events and characters in the book, we are retelling the story with pictures and summary statements about them.  Here is Part 1 - ENJOY!