Category: Science

The Ocean Wise Sea Dome Experience

On Wednesday, we had some wonderful visitors from Ocean Wise*. The guides brought a Sea Dome, an inflatable six-metre dome that projects a 360-degree cinematic video! We watched a short video on climate change and looked at animals in the ocean. We were able to view tropical reefs, sea ice in the Arctic, and many amazing animals up-close! We saw an octopus, a sea turtle, a whale, a shark, jellyfish and more.

After the sea dome experience, students were guided through two other stations, looking at artifacts and images. Our guide showed us turtles and coral reefs from around the world. Then, we looked at a huge Arctic floor map. Our guide talked about the loss of sea ice and its impact on the animals (e.g. Polar bears, seals) that lived there. We even saw and touched a 9 foot narwhal tooth!

Ocean Wise is a non-profit organization which aims to protect and restore our world’s oceans. Thanks to Ms. Sue for organizing this.

Ask your child, what was their favorite part of the presentation?

 

Fall Leaves

Our Fall inquiry started with many wonders.  We wonder:

“Why do they (leaves) change from green?”

“Do leaves change every season?”

“Why do the leaves fall down?”

“Why do the leaves change colour?”

“How does it get colder?”

“Why are the leaves red?”

On our nature walk we explored around Parkcrest Park and looked for different kinds of leaves.  We sorted them into Fall colours (brown, yellow, red, orange) and green and then tried rubbing leaves on paper to see if they leave a colour.  We were pretty amazed to see nature colours on our paper!

We worked as a team and sorted leaves into different sizes- small, medium, big, biggest.

As scientists, we investigated why leaves change colours in the fall. First, we made some guesses.

“The weather is cold.”

“We have less sun.”

“It rains a lot.”

Then, we sorted the fall leaves by colour, ripped the leaves into bits and covered it with rubbing alcohol. We put coffee filters into the leaf and rubbing alcohol mixture and allowed it to sit long enough to absorb the liquid. As the liquid travels up the coffee filter it separates all the colors that were inside the leaf.

We learned that during fall, the days get shorter so the leaves don’t get enough sunlight and the green chlorophyll disappears from the leaves.  As the green fades away, we begin to see yellow, orange, red and/or brown colours. Small amounts of these colors have been in the leaves all along!

Symmetrical drawings of our leaves

Parts of a Leaf

Our Leaf People

The Leaf Man goes where the wind blows…

 

Our Leaf People flew to a lot of places and saw many things.  Some flew to a pumpkin patch, some went to a forest, one went to a big city, a couple went to a farm and a few flew home.   Please ask your child to tell you their Leaf Man story 🙂

Beecher Park Fun

Thank you to our PAC parents for organizing Parkcrest Fun Day on Wednesday!

The sun came out and we enjoyed a beautiful walk through the luscious forest of the Andrew-Leong Green trail. Students saw salmonberries, many plants and wildflowers, and walked along the creek.

At Beecher Park, there was lots of time to play and relax!

 

Our Jack-o-Lantern

We are scientists and we have been studying about pumpkins. We read stories, had discussions, made observations, and last week, we touched and smelled the inside of our class pumpkin! The children watched me carve our pumpkin into a jack-o-lantern.

We created a web of  words that we thought described the inside of the pumpkin.

We measured, drew pictures, and counted pumpkin seeds. Our small pumpkin had many seeds, much more seeds than a bigger pumpkin! We learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin, and most importantly, we had a fun week!

Ask your child to tell you what they know about pumpkins.

The Pumpkin Patch

We had an amazing experience visiting the Aldor Acres Pumpkin Patch in Langley!  It was a beautiful, sunny day.  For some of the students, it was their very first pumpkin patch experience.  In the classroom, we talked about farms and animals, so this field trip was a great opportunity for them to explore and experience animal life cycles and their local environments.

The children were delighted with the animals. We saw so many – sheep, horses, piglets, chicks, bunnies, goats, llamas, donkeys, chickens, even a newborn puppy, and more!  Some of us were hesitant at first to hold these delicate baby animals, but most of us got the chance to either pet or hold some animals.

After lunch, we all hopped onto a tractor-pulled wagon and headed over to the field to pick our pumpkins to take home!

 

At the end of the school day, we had a sharing circle and each student shared their favorite part of the trip!

Here are a few things that were said:

“I loved the baby bunnies!”

“Riding the wagon was the best!”

“the big, biiiiiiig goats!”

“the pumpkins – so many!”

“jumping on the hay”

“ride the bus”

If you ask your child to tell you what their favorite moment was, feel free to share their answer in the comments!

I would also like to say a big Thank You to our parent volunteers who were able to come and supervise groups of students. Thank you for helping out and sending me your photos.

Also, thanks to Ms. Gourlay for organizing and booking this trip!

 

We have BEAN busy planting!

We have been learning about plants! We planted three types of beans. We planted the Runner beans and Bush beans in our class planter.

We sprouted the Pole beans in our “sprout houses” (in Ziploc bags). We sprayed water in our bags and taped them to our classroom windows so they can absorb the sunlight. In days, our beans began to sprout! We noticed that the seeds absorbed the water and soon, we saw roots pushing through their seed coats. We documented this and what we have learned in our Plant Journals.

We soon transferred our seedlings to soil in our class planter. Within days, they began to grow, grow, grow! We will continue to water our beans and watch them grow. The Pole beans can grow up to 20 feet tall!

 

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Please view your child’s blogfolio for individual photos.

Cherry Blossoms

Cherry blossoms are such a welcome sign of Spring. We are so fortunte to have beautiful white and pink cherry blossoms outside our school!  Last week, we went outside and studied these trees.

We decided to paint some cherry trees. First, we painted a dark blackground. We used black and white with shades of gray. Next, we painted the wider tree trunks with thin tree branches. Finally, we used cotton swabs to create different colored cherry blossoms.

Please log in to your child’s Blogfolio to see their work of art!

 

 

Here is what our hallway bulletin looks like: