Category: We are scientists.

Cities in the Snow

If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out our cities in the snow display in our hallway by the cloakroom area. Students used their creative minds to draw their buildings. We just love how each one of them are quite different as they made it their very own! 

Students recently made beautiful rainbows. They are hanging in our classroom and really brighten up the room! Feel free to come take a peek!

Mathematicians at Work

Both grades have been working hard while having fun as mathematicians. To find out more about what your child is learning about, please go to our We are Learners > Mathematicians page. Here is where you can find what your child is expected to know and some suggestions on how you can support learning at home. A deck of cards is really all you need to reinforce learning at home. A digital option that students have enjoyed is Math Tappers; it can be downloaded onto an iPad for free. Children can choose different sums to 20 and up to 100 to practice their addition fluency and accuracy. We are aiming for 100% accuracy and to improve on their timed score each time.

Scientists 

We have been learning a lot about water, the water cycle, sources, and conservation. To find out more about what your child learned in Term 2, please go to our We are Learners > Scientists page. Students have been really engaged in sharing their knowledge by recording their own re-creation of the water cycle using an app called Puppet Pals HD Director’s Pass. You can download Puppet Pals for free (limited characters and scenes). Students will be showing you their projects during our Family Read time tomorrow. Please join us to celebrate their hard work! Projects will be uploaded to our blog soon for everyone to enjoy.

Symbaloo

The other day, we introduced Symbaloo to the students. This is a visual bookmarking site where we have posted some fun websites to visit. To access, look to the right-hand sidebar under Links and click on Symbaloo. Some students really enjoyed Free Rice. There are online flashcards to practice sight words or Math fluency strategies. 

Primary Days of Music

Students sang beautifully today. Thank you to Mr. Douglas for teaching them such wonderful songs about diversity and taking care of our earth. 

Report Card Envelopes

A reminder to sign the report card envelope and return it to school as soon as possible. If it is not returned before spring break, may we suggest that you place the envelope inside your child’s planner; that way, the two will stay together. Thank you.

After Spring Break

We look forward to seeing your child back on April 1st refreshed and ready for an exciting week of Hip Hop dancing! Please dress appropriately each day for movement in the gym. There will be a whole school performance on Friday, April 5 in the afternoon.

If we don’t see you at the end of the day on Friday, we hope you all have a wonderful spring break! Keep up with your enjoyment of reading during the break!

Our little scientists have been learning about the water cycle. Yesterday was super exciting because we had an opportunity to go outside to study snowflakes. Can you spot the “perfect” snowflake with clearly 6 dendrites? Click on the image to see a larger one.

We have some new vocabulary words: condensation, evaporation, precipitation, transpiration, water vapour, cloud, runoff.

Students know the words to the Water Cycle song. Watch the video to practice with the music (no words):

Today, we watched Bill Nye explain the Water Cycle. Please feel free to watch again at home to reinforce learning.

As scientists, it is important to be curious. What do you wonder about water and the water cycle? Please feel free to ask your questions here by making a comment on this blog post. Thank you for your questions!

A ball of modelling clay was provided to manipulate into an object that can float. After discovering a way of how to make it float, students were tasked with seeing how many teddy bears can sit on the boat before it sank. For such young children, what we were most impressed with was their ability to stay focussed with great determination to succeed and for such a long time. They showed such patience, perseverance, and critical thinking when provided with the challenge to make a dense object float.

The critical thinking skills that were demonstrated throughout were also truly brilliant. Wished every parent could have been there to witness their learning! Some used the inside of a bowl to form their boat. When that didn’t work, they tried it on the outside of the bowl. Other students believed that making sure their boat was dry was important so they used our sponges to dry it off each time. Then in order to try to hold more teddy bears, they exercised further critical thinking skills to experiment with the shape of their boats. The learning was so rich and students were so engaged and motivated. We felt so proud of how they self-regulated their emotions even though some of them weren’t successful until the very end. They kept trying and trying and demonstrated a never give up attitude.

Here were some reflections shared:

• I learned that when I take the clay and fold it up, it float.
• That the same object can sink and float. – Isla
• If you have too much water in the boat, then it will sink. – Sasha
• I learned to “never give up”. – Charlotte T.
• I learned that even if there’s little tiny holes, you will have to block the holes. It can be holes on the side but not on the bottom. – Mehr

Spontaneously, most unexpected student etched “I can think critically” on her floatie. Made us smile!

Core Competencies connection:

• I can show perseverance.
• I can try and try again.
• I can think critically.

Students, what did you think about this critical thinking activity? Please feel free to leave a comment. We would love to hear your thoughts!

Our little scientists started learning about Water and States of Matter last Friday by witnessing the life cycle of a snowman. Since we have had no snow in our forecast, the learning must go on so we gathered some “snow” from the skating rink last Tuesday to create our snowman in the classroom. They watched it go from a solid snowman to liquid water and end up as a gas (steam). Students learned that solids keep its form while liquids take the shape of its container and gases expand to the size of their container. They have also learned about the molecules in solids, liquids, and gases.

We watched Ms. Frizzle teach her students about molecules. Click here to watch the video “Magic School Bus Meets Molly Cule” together at home as review. Ask your child what they already know! Check out our Science page to learn more about what students are expected to learn. Feel free to make a comment to add any questions your scientist at home may have about the states of matter or molecules.

If you haven’t had an opportunity to come by the classroom, we have some cute, unique snowmen hanging by our windows. Come check them out during our Family Reading time this Friday. They sure brighten up the room!

Our other experience with frozen water ended yesterday with our last ice skating session at Bill Copeland. We are so proud of the great improvements our athletes made over only three sessions! Many went from little confidence and experience to skating around on their very own. We are so very grateful to our parent volunteer drivers; without you, this triple field trip would not have been possible. Many thanks to the parents of Fisher, JeanBenoit, Katherine, Leo, Lucas, Myel, Priscilla, Charlotte, Gabby, Hanna, Jeffery, Olivya, and Sasha.

If any families have an overabundance of plastic forks or spoons, please feel free to send to school as our stash has been depleted. Just a note that no utensils are provided for hot lunches and a gentle reminder to pack a fork or spoon with your child’s lunch if they need one. Thank you.

Family Literacy Week begins next week. Be on the lookout for more information about our planned activities including a dress up day! Please save the date and join us for our Celebration of Learning on Thursday, January 31st at 9:00 am.

Arriving Early –  Thank you so much to the families who make the effort to arrive on time every single morning. Unfortunately, we also have a number of different students arriving late on a regular basis on many mornings. Some days, we may have up to eight students who are not on time. We love starting our lessons right at the bell. If your child is six minutes late every day, that equates to 30 minutes of lost instruction over a week and over the course of a month, that is over two hours missed. So, we are requesting that families readjust their mornings and plan to arrive early, rather than just on time, please. We really appreciate your support in reaching our class goal.