Problem to Ponder:

Wind Powered Cars

A few students in 5th grade have been working to use the power of the wind to move a car at least 20 feet.  Students are learning about testing and making hypothesis from those tests to improve their invention.  It has been frustrating at times, but in the end it is always rewarding!

Rocketry

A new topic was chosen by some 6th graders to explore this year.  Rocketry is the study of making and understanding why rockets fly into the air.  Students made a rocket from a kit and launched it three different times.  They have compared the variables at each test and used the estimated launch distance of 1,500 feet in the air to calculate various things.  The next focus for them will include launch angle, as all launches to this date have been straight up, or at 90 degrees.

What's it take to float a boat?

4th Grade students have been engineering boats made from tinfoil.  They studied the property of buoyancy and made several attempts at floating pennies in their boats.  Many tests were performed and many boats sank, but learning and a new model came from it.  Almost 400 pennies were floated on the boat using only a 12inch by 12inch piece of tinfoil.

State Math Bee

Today was the annual State Math Bee held by the Central Rivers AEA.  The 6th Grade team at West Elementary qualified a couple weeks ago by placing 5th in the Eastern Regional.  The kids worked hard in between testing days and it paid off.

The team of Talan, AJ, Ethan and Brady came away with the bronze medals at the state competition.  These students were tested over the topics found in the Iowa Core; Number Systems, Expressions and Equations, Geometry, Statistics and Probability, Ratios and Proportions.  We are very proud of them here at West Elementary for their third place finish!

Spring Noetic Class Winners

Math students from 2nd grade through 6th grade have spent a lot of time on the Noetic Problem Solving program lately.  The program is a nation-wide program that provides challenging problems to over 750 schools throughout 47 states.  The problems are not your ordinary math problems, they focus more on real life situations, logic, and general problem solving.  With these problems intertwined in the Iowa Core, it provides students things they are learning in the classroom while adding higher order thinking skills.  It is very challenging for students, many mistakes are made and with that comes learning from each other and themselves for future problems.  Elizabeth, Carter, Zach, Cael and Talan were all class winners this year.  Talan and Zach also earned National Honor Roll status, meaning that their score was in the top 10% of all the 34,000+ students who took the Noetic tests this spring.  

Congrats to all the students who persevered through the tough problems, the errors, mistakes and finally the new learning to make themselves all better math students!

Creative Writing Opportunity

Dozens of students in the elementary schools participated in the annual Iowa Reading Association Creative Writing contest this spring.  Many stories and poems were created during writing classes and covered a wide variety of topics.  We have many talented writers here in Independence and the results from the judges certainly showed that this year.  
Pictured are four students from West Elementary that were awarded 1st place in the Eastern Council Division of the state.  

Pictured is Marley- 1st Place Short Story 4th Grade, Matthew- 1st Place Poem 4th Grade, Connor- 1st place Poem 5th Grade, Akeelah- 1st Place Short Story 6th Grade

These four students were honored at the Creative Writing Banquet last week.  They received books, pencils and certificates for their writing.  Matthew, Connor and Akeelah were also crowned STATE CHAMPIONS and are invited to a special banquet in Ames this summer.  This is quite an accomplishment by all the hard working students here at West Elementary School.

4th Grade 3D Print Project

A few students were introduced to an online 3D design program this year.  Each student uses Tinkercad.com to add and manipulate common shapes to form their train cars.  Details were then added for that individual touch.  The MakerBot 3D printer can only print in one color, so multiple designs were created to get different colors of the components.  Many measurements were used when planing and designing each model by the students.  I would say they are ready to design the cars at Ford or GM!

Great job Taylor, Zach, and Reece!