We Listened to an Astronaut

On Monday, March 29, 2010 our school took part in a radio contact with the Space Station when it passed over Azle at about 10:00 A.M. Mrs. Tyler's Fourth Grade class had prepared questions for Astronaut Soichi Noguchi . We all sat in the gym and waited to hear the words, "This is the Space Station, are you there?" It was very exciting to hear the astronaut report back his answers to the questions the fourth graders had prepared.They had about 13 minutes
of time avaliable while the space station was reachable by satellite radio.






This is a picture of Solchl Noguchi who spoke to us. He is a Japanese astronaut and flight engineeer for Expedition 22. He told us he has been in space for 100 days.

This is the map we viewed. The blue circle surrounds the white arrow which shows the flight path. The Space Station was about 6000 miles out when we began tracking it. It travels at about 17,500 MPH, so fast it was over Azle in about 10 minutes.

This is a picture of the Space Station we found on the internet when we went to the computer lab afterwards. We went to nasa.gov and nasa for kids off the school site. Some students found an actual tour of the space station. We also saw pictures the astronauts had taken from space.

Here is the antenna that was installed by the Radio Club of Tri-County over the weekend on the top of Walnut Creek. We were told that the space station astronauts have talked to about 528 schools from all around the world. We are one of the few schools in the United States. We took part in this tremendous experience because Mrs. Tyler made the necessary contacts needed to make this take place. She told us she had tried for two years for this to happen. She was very excited and we appreciate everyone who helped make this happen. Watch the videos below and see if you can hear the astronaut speaking.

Pioneer Day Fun

Second Grade held a Pioneer Day on March 14. We had lots of fun in our classroom. View some of our activities in the pictures below.

Mrs. Quick, our librarian came into our classroom and brought a quilt she had made. She called in The Laura Ingles Quilt. Each square matched a story from one of Laura's books. She told us how the pioneers used to make quilts.

We talked about the clothing and hats pioneer children might wear.

This is a real pioneer bonnet.

More pioneer clothing. Pioneer children had to work hard. We did some "work" in our classroom that day.

We gathered wood and made fires.

We played marbles.

Here is some wheat that has been ground into flour by hand and rock.

Some students built pioneer buildings.

Log home construction.

Building a bridge for the train to cross over.

We even had to make our snack. We took real cream and poured some into each container. Then every student had to take turns shaking the container until the butter set up. Then we got to eat the butter on crackers.

Here is Our Class Quilt. Look for your page. It takes everyone's help to make a quilt. We decided that working and playing like a pioneer was fun for the day, but doing the real stuff was probably pretty hard to do.

Our Worm Farm

Our Red Wriggler worms arrived by special mail on January 28, 2010.

We had to prepare the worm farm by shredding newspaper, adding peat moss and then adding some fruits and vegetables. We add more food once a week. As the weeks have passed we are seeing that the food is disappearing and the worms are growing. Some food takes longer to break down than others. The worms don't eat meat, breads or sweets - only fruits and veggies.

Last week we added more newspaper and a layer of spinach.

Look carefully, can you see the worms? We've also identified some worm babies. They look like a little brown seed.

Here is some of the rich, deep brown, "soil," that the worms have created for us. This is what we

hope to use on our garden this spring. The white stuff you see is egg shell. That's suppose to make healthier worms.

Habitat Dioramas

We have been learning about habitats and how each habitat is an environment to meet an animal's need for food, water and shelter. Please view the created habitat's below and see if you can identify each habitat correctly. Thanks to each student and the help they recieved in completing these projects. I was very pleased with the results. No names will be used on this site. It can only be viewed by invitation only. Mrs. Abraham