Captain Elementary School

Pebbles, Sand, and Silt - February-March

The Pebbles, Sand, and Silt Module provides experiences that heighten primary students' awareness, curiosity, and understanding of Earth's natural resources—rocks, soil, and water—and provides opportunities for students to engage in scientific and engineering practices. Students explore the natural world by using simple tools to observe and describe properties of earth materials. In this module, students will:

• Observe and compare physical properties of rocks and soils, using various tools.
• Rub rocks together and observe that they break into smaller pieces.
• Use screens to separate and group river rocks by particle size, and investigate properties of pebbles, gravel, sand, silt, and clay particles.
• Explore places where earth materials are naturally found and ways that earth materials are used.
• Use sand to make sculptures and clay to make beads, jewelry, and bricks.
• Find, collect, record, and compare samples of soil outside the classroom.    

Balance and Motion – January - February

We live in a dynamic world where everything is in motion, or so it seems. But not everything is moving the same way. Some things move from one place to another. Other things rotate around and around. Still other things are stationary, stable for a time, balanced on a thin line between stop and go. Other objects move back and forth or vibrate.These are the global phenomena that students experience in the Balance andMotion Module. In this module, students will:

• Create and use representational models to demonstrate stable balanced systems.
• Construct and evaluate toys that demonstrate spinning, and explain how they operate.
• Design runways to control or change the motion of marbles.
• Communicate observations and compare stability and motion, using precise vocabulary.
• Plan and carry out investigations with sound and with magnetic force.
• Analyze and interpret observational data.    

The Plants and Animals Module provides experiences that heighten students' awareness of the way that plants and animals meet their basic needs. Students observe the structures of plants and discover ways to propagate new plants from mature plants (from seeds, bulbs,roots, and stem cuttings). They observe and describe changes that occur as plants grow, and compare classroom plants to those in the schoolyard. They design terrariums and provide for the needs of both plants and animals living together in the classroom. In this module, students will

• Observe what happens when young ryegrass and alfalfa plants are cut near the soil surface.
• Compare structures and behaviors of different pairs of animals.
• Cut plant stems, place them in water or soil, and observe changes over time.
• Initiate the growth of a new plant from a bulb and from a root, and observe changes over time.
• Design and build a terrarium habitat that provides for the needs of plants and animals.
• Record observations of plants and animals, using drawing and writing.