Today, our class talked about the prehistoric, aquatic, mysterious creature known as the ‘Tully Monster’. This species is known to be around 14 inches long, lived in streams/creeks, and had 2 long eye stalks and a large clawed appendage. However, many paleontologists are in disagreement about what kind of animal it was: was it related to a squid? Was it more like a fish? Is it something different altogether?

What do you think?

Have you ever tried ‘street food’? This could be a meal served in a cart or in a food truck! Some common street foods you might see include hot dogs, gyros, crepes, etc. Vancouver is famous for the Japanese fusion cart known as ‘Japadog’. What started as 1 street cart has now turned into over 8 carts and even a restaurant!

We also read a story about boy who wants to eat Halal hot dogs with his family after prayers. Halal is a special kind of preparation of food/rules about food that some people who practice Islam follow. Many Muslim people may eat Halal meats, or may choose not to eat pork.

Check out the real-life inspiration for the Halal Hotdog book below:

 

Our read-aloud novel is a bit of a ‘historical’ fiction… the story is set at the beginning of the pandemic (March 2020). Think back to what we were thinking and feeling back then. This story follows Knox, whose family moves from Hong Kong to American during the early stages of the pandemic. Knox has to deal with leaving his dad and dog behind in Hong Kong, worrying about his family’s money troubles, tackling his learning differences, finding his identity as a Chinese-American, and standing up against anti-Asian racism at his new school. On top of all of that, his older brother Bowen is always getting on Knox’s case.

This new book is from Kelly Yang, who wrote the Front Desk series (one of our favourites from last year)!

Some questions to consider at home:

1. If you could send a message to yourself in March 2020, what would you say?
2. Do you think that there will be lots of stories (and even textbooks) set during the pandemic in the future? Are we living during an important time in history?
3. Have you ever witnessed discrimination or prejudice?

If you want to watch Kelly Yang reading a chapter of her newest novel, watch the video below:

Do all ice creams and frozen desserts melt? Our Scientists conducted a myth-busting experiment to determine whether the following internet rumour was true: “Breyer’s Frozen Dessert does not melt. I left the ice cream out for over 70 hours without any melting or change. What is in this product that keeps it from melting?” (taken from a YouTube video with over 600,000 views).

Our class tested 4 frozen sweet treats including: a popsicle, rainbow sherbet, Breyer’s frozen dessert, and Chapman’s ice cream. We left the frozen desserts out for 5 hours, checking in every so often to see any changes. Our results are below:

Above left: rainbow shebert after 4 hours

Above right: Chapman’s vanilla ice cream after 4 hours

     

Above left: the Breyer’s frozen dessert (the focus of the internet rumour) after 4 hours.

Above right: the grape popsicle after 4 hours

What do you notice in our results? We found that all of the desserts had noticeable changes, however the Breyer’s frozen dessert maintained the shape/size. We think this might be due to the high concentration of gum products (ex: guar gum) and lower percentage of milk/dairy fats in this frozen dessert.

Feel free to watch the time-lapse video below of different frozen treats melting!

Have you ever tried bubble tea? This sweet treat was invented in the 1980’s in Taiwan. Since it was invented, many different flavours have been created. You could try a fruit tea with coconut jelly, a milk tea with brown sugar pearls, an Oreo slush with red bean, a taro smoothie with grass jelly, or a jasmine green tea with mango stars. The combinations seem endless!

Image above: a few options for toppings/add-ins available at some Bubble Tea shops.

Below: an infographic of how profitable the Bubble Tea market is, and how much they think the industry will be worth in 2026!

Check out the video below to watch the process of creating tapioca/pearls/boba at at Bubble Tea shop:

History Mystery Part 1_

Our historians are hard at work investigating primary sources, theories, and engineering blueprints about the Titanic! Take a look by clicking the link above!

Today, our class learned about the extreme environment that is Mount Everest. Many people will travel to this mountain to try to climb to the summit. It is a treacherous and dangerous mission because of the extreme cold temperatures, lack of oxygen, unpredictable storms, and harsh and icy terrain. Even more impressive, however, are the Sherpa people who have been helping tourists climb the mountains for decades. The Sherpa people are a cultural group who live in and around Nepal. Many members of the Sherpa people are hired as guides for people looking to climb the mountain. The Sherpa will risk their lives to get enough money to pay for their family and children’s education, sometimes climbing the mountain up to 20 times! Many Scientists have called these Sherpa guides “superhuman athletes” because of their strength, perseverance, and heroism!

Would you ever consider climbing Mount Everest? Have you ever heard of the Sherpa community? Why do you think the stories we hear are often of tourists climbing the mountain, not the members of the Sherpa community?

Our class is continuing our analysis of Studio Ghibli films. The next film we are learning about is My Neighbor Totoro, which was made in 1988. This movie is animated by hand, which means that every movement of each character is hand-drawn. These movies can take up to 6+ years to make! According to an interview with an animator at Studio Ghibli: “We are still hand-drawing everything, but it takes us more time to complete a film because we’re drawing more frames,” he explains. “The current film that Hayao Miyazaki (from Studio Ghibli) is working on, we have 60 animators, but we are only able to come up with one minute of animation in a month. That means 12 months a year, you get 12 minutes worth of movie. Actually, we’ve been working on this film for three years, so that means we have 36 minutes completed so far. We’re hoping it will finish in the next three years.”

Below is the English trailer for My Neighbour Totoro:

Some discussion questions to chat about at home:

-Do you prefer animated, CGI, or live-action movies? Why?

-What folktales or fairytales did you hear as a child (ex: the Little Mermaid, forest spirits)?

-Have you ever watched any movies from Studio Ghibli?

Have you ever heard of the Titanic? We are going to be investigating what events, factors, and people might have caused this ‘unsinkable ship’ to be destroyed in 1912. The Titanic is still a fascinating topic, even over 100 years after it sank! Our first piece of evidence is this video from 1912, which shows the moments before the Titanic departed from the dock. What do you notice? What do you think people were thinking/feeling? If you could go back in time, what would you tell these people? Stay tuned for more evidence and theories about the HISTORY MYSTERY: TITANIC EDITION!

In our investigation of extreme environments across the globe, our class is learning about Yakutia. This village in the Sakha district of Siberia, Russia is considered to be the coldest place to live on Earth (excluding Antarctica, where people do not live permanently).

We are able to learn about life in this village from YouTubers such as KiunB who document their daily lives in this extreme climate. How is your life different or similar to the lives of people living in Yakutia?