The Rookery

 The other day when I threw out a little blurb about orbital forces ("So, you know, the earth is always trying to move straight and the sun's gravity pulls it in making a circle…if we stop orbiting, we'll be pulled straight into the sun…") the students exploded with questions.  "What would happen?"  "What if the sun wasn't there?"  "How hot is the sun?"  "Does it move?"  Sometimes, where to go next is a no brainer.

We've begun a theme about the sun.  Yesterday we checked out the solar panel and we've been recording the watts that are generated throughout the day.  We also talked briefly about concentrating the sun's energy with a magnifying glass (yes, we had a safety conversation, too).  Unfortunately, both of our attempts to start fires have failed, leading to a lot of discussion of variables we could change.  We made books to record our work and talked about electromagnetic waves and visible light.  The Herons are at the perfect age to ponder things like, "My shirt has a chemical (dye) on it that reflects only the blue wavelength…that's the light that reaches my eye…crazy."  One of my favorite observations of the day was when the class looked at T.R.'s white shirt and asked if that meant more light was being absorbed by my black polar fleece than if she was wearing a black shirt.  "What if everybody in the world wore one color…like black…would there be any light to see anything by?"

I have lessons planned for the life cycle of stars (already there are lots of questions about the vacuum of space "Wait, wait…what do you mean there's nothing there?"), the conservation of energy, and photosythesis (with an eye toward food energy and fossil fuels).  If there's anyone out there who knows how to explain particle wave theory to fourth and fifth graders (or their teacher) I'd be very grateful!