Our Dead Word Cemetery

Inspired by the "Dead Word" post on this blog HERE, we buried over nineteen words in our Dead Word Cemetery.

To figure out which words we wanted to "bury," we had a whole-class discussion about what type of words we tend to overuse in our writing. Then someone mentioned how a thesaurus could help us find better words to replace the "dead" words, so our writing could be more detailed and specific. 

After we created tombstones to honor the words we planned on using less frequently, we shared our tombstones with the class and found a place for them on our classroom door. 

CLICK HERE to see our Dead Word Cemetery from 2012-13. 

The entire cemetery (including background and tombstones) were created, hung,
and maintained by students in our class. 

Fizz Inflator

During our study of chemical changes, we did an investigation from ScienceBob.com called the "Fizz Inflator." Through the investigation, we were able to see how two different types of matter (vinegar, a liquid, and baking soda, a solid)  combine to create a new type of matter: carbon dioxide, a gas. Since the vinegar and solid reacted together to create a new type of matter, this is an example of a chemical reaction. 

As a result of the carbon dioxide, we were able to inflate our balloons! 

Verb Snowmen

To help us review verbs, we generated verbs with our partners and created verb snowmen using Tagxedo (a word cloud website). This project helped us re-familiarize ourselves with the types of words that are verbs and categorize verbs based on the three main types of verbs: linking, helping, and action. Action verbs are verbs that show action in a sentence (examples: jog, smile, bend, yell); linking verbs are verbs that connect the subject to extra information about the subject (examples: is, are, was being); and helping verbs help the main verb show different tenses (examples: is looking, are moving , were walking, will be asking). 

 

Constitutional Powers

Created with Padlet

Vokis: How Matter Can Change