Room 661 took their best shot with lasers and the study of reflection and refraction.  We are working on how light interacts with the world around us.  We defined reflection and refraction and talked about how we use reflections every day.  The students were split into collaborative groups that were challenged with hitting targets that were placed around the room, including on the ceiling.  The placement of the targets and the direction that the students had to aim their lasers (see directional arrows under the stools) forced them to use mirrors to reflect the light around the room in order to hit the targets.  A dark room + laser pointers + mirrors + awesome teamwork + targets with bullseyes = Science fun!

2014 was a crazy, crazy year! I finished by 1st year teaching 5th grade at Daly Elementary, I became a certified triathlon coach with the Mini Cow Tri Club, and my family went on another awesome trip to Finland.

The biggest event for me in 2014 was become a certified triathlon coach.  I have always loved coaching and becoming a triathlon coach has been a blast.  I get to spend my summer with 50 of the coolest youth triathletes swimming, biking, and running.

I absolutely loved the Winter Olympics.  We had fun in the classroom watching the events, learning about the science that makes the events possible, and researching the countries that were represented by amazing athletes.

I am looking forward to watching my kids grow, learn, and race this year.  I am also very excited about the upcoming racing season.

Finland 2014 from Frank Fitzpatrick on Vimeo.

Students were asked to predict what it would take to illuminate a light bulb.  They didn’t know the materials that they had available when they drew their prediction.  Each pair of students was asked to light bulb at first and then had additional challenges given to them.

We had a great day in Room 661 playing with electricity, static electricity.  The students were documenting what happened when a charge balloon came close to various objects in the classroom.  Some of the objects that were tested were paper dots, the walls, chairs, hair, and soda cans.

We will be building circuits in the next few days as well.  We watched a couple of videos about static electricity.  Some of the videos involved some seriously crazy contraptions….. I think they want to build them.   :-

Here are some of the pictures from today: