Nez Perce Expedition BBK

Sorry about the lack of posts. We have not been on top of of our blogging. The last few weeks have seen big changes to our walls. Our learning posters and astronomy work are beginning to be replaced with our Character Trait posters from literature circle and a whole bunch of great Nez Perce BBK (Building Background Knowledge) thinking. We began with a mystery quote from Chief Joseph, which led to fact gathering from our common texts about the Nez Perce War and Flight of 1877. Students investigated boundary maps of the Nez Perce homeland, treaty of 1855 and the treaty of 1863. Today we learned how to make timelines by making our own timelines of events between 1800-1900. Next week we will begin to examining Nez Perce Culture.

"We started a new expedition this week. We are learning about Native Americans. It has been a 4 day week, because Monday was president's day. We are also studying the Nez Perce war of 1877.
Avery 4th Grade

HELP SUPPORT MOSCOW"S WALK OF THE PLANETS

MOSCOW’S WALK OF THE PLANETS

Who: Palouse Prairie School of Expeditionary Learning.

Background: Our 3rd and 4th grade crew conducted a four-month expedition on Astronomy this past fall. An expedition is a focused investigation of a topic and in the end we want to produce a service to the community based on our found knowledge. During our expedition we learned about scale from Ms. Ana Dodgen, and we heard about other towns like Lewiston that had a walking scale model of the Solar System. Our crew thought it would be nice to have our own walking scale model in Moscow.

Where: We would like to put the scale model on the Moscow City Bike Path, preferably the stretch along the Moscow-Pullman Highway between Winco and the student rec center. Another potential site would be on the Troy Trail or Chipman Taylor Trail.

How: We would use the 1-10 Billion Scale Model. Scale model information would be placed on a metal sign, fastened to a wooden post, cemented in the ground at the appropriate distance from the start point/SUN.

When: On April 22, 2011 – Our students would walk to the site, measure the path to fit the scale we select, and install the posts. On April 23, 2011 – Our students would put on a public dedication at the beginning of the Model.

Things in the Works:
• Getting approval through the city, and we are working to get our proposal on the March City Council agenda.
• We need to determine the cost.
• Pick a specific site.

Celebration of Learning

Hey Everyone!

It has been a crazy week with a capital Z! We worked feverishly on our book all the way up to the very last minute on Thursday. Thanks to Ms. Sherie's coupons we were able to print several fabulous copies. Yesterday we took some time from our work to visit Ana Dodgen at the WSU planetarium. She showed up how use how the night sky rotates from East to West like the Sun and Moon. We even got her to tell us about a few famous constellations. On friday we got everything done, finished building our Galileoscopes for the Palouse Discovery Science Center, completed our imaginary planet writing project, and even had time to throw a wild Friday night Celebration of Learning to wrap up our expedition.
-Mr. Ellsworth

MOVING INTO 2nd SEMESTER

This week in the 3/4 Crew one of the things that happened was Ana Dodgen, our came to teach us about craters and how they are formed. Also we drew pictures of the solar system with labels and lots of detail. Today we helped the kindergartners get ready for their first student led conferences. We look forward to an upcoming field work at the WSU planetarium.
-Lena and Emma 3/4 Crew




This has seen some great changes in our daily schedule. We moved our Math block to the morning which seems to give the kids a little extra concentration. After math we now hold our morning meetings. Gabe was our morning meeting leader and really did a good job this week. I was also very impressed by how Frances and John took charge of P.E. as our P.E. leaders. We have been working on our transitions this week, and we are getting ready for the final push in our expedition before friday's Celebration of Learning. Remember parents that achievement reports come out this tuesday.
Mr. Ellsworth 3/4 Crew

Our 3-4 Crew has been doing an expedition on the solar system, and an expert astronomer came in yesterday and talked with us about the Moon and eclipses. We also all hopefully enjoyed our Community Led Learning which started this week. Hopefully we all got our 1-3 choices. We have also been working really hard on our our portfolios and most of us have finished them. Our crew set up the room, cleaned the room, and some people made a new CREW poster for parent night.
-Elizabeth and Taylor D. 3/4 CREW


This week I, Mr. Ellsworth, got the chance to travel to Kansas City for a training on effective and high quality expeditions. It was really exciting because I got to meet the legendary Steven Leavy. The first day was spent looking at an expedition on human rights, and the trainers used the Rwanda Genocide as the teaching vehicle. The second day was a walk through the planning templates, difference between projects and products, and we got an opportunity to examine high quality products from around the country. On the last day, we got an opportunity to work on our upcoming expedition plans, conference with experts, collaborate with teachers from other states. Outside of the sub-zero temperatures, it was an amazing training.
-Mr. Ellsworth 3/4 Crew Leader

This week as 3/4 crew we went ice skating and we made a portfolio for student led conferences. 3/4 crew also made Galileoscopes with Stephanie from the Pullman Science Center. We also went through our expedition journals and generated a question to write a paragraph for our book.
-Anna PPSEL 3rd Grade



This was an event packed week! Stephanie from the Pullman Science Center came in and helped us build Galileoscopes. She left our telescopes to finish next week. They were very fun to make. We aslo wrote questions about the solar system and answered them using what we know. We knew a lot, so most of the answers were long. Then the whole school went ice skating in the middle of the day! Many of the kids did not know how to skate, but other kids that did helped them or even taught them how. When we first got the rink, only 68% of the kids knew how to skate, but by the end about 98% could. PPSEL definitely represented CREW at the rink! If that isn't enough, we also made our portfolios this week, and they were really nice.
-Jonna PPSEL 3rd Grade

Earth's Orbit

We have begun our newest investigation into the Sun and Earth interaction. The guiding question is "How does the Sun and Earth interaction cause the seasons?" In class we have used several different objects to model the Earth and Sun: dodgeballs, globes, lamps and balls on sticks. Our expert Ana Dodgen began our modeling last wednesday, and each day since students have taken turns walking the orbit of the Earth.










After some reading and writing down our ideas about solstices and equinoxes, we added those to our Earth orbit models. Students have identified that the Earth's tilt never changes, equinoxes are the moments when there is an equal amount of day length from the North to South poles, and Solstices are the shortest and longest days of year depending on which side of the equator you are on.









With much discussion, some writing, and a few online Earth orbit simulators, students put their knowledge together in their own Earth Orbit picture. Labeling the solstices, equinoxes, and seasons.