Wednesday 28 January 2015

Warm & Cool Snowmen

January 23rd
Check out our new art display!  These are our warm and cool snowmen.  After looking at and discussing the colour wheel, the students had to choose either four warm colours or four cool colours for their snowman's background.


Hearing and Sound ~ Jam Session!

January 23rd
Hearing and Sound ~ Jam Session!

I invited M Campeau, the grade 4/5 French teacher at our school, and his class,  to come and visit our class on Friday.  M Campeau is a drummer and he came to share his expertise!  He had many exciting stories to share and facts to tell us that extended our learning and understanding of hearing and sound.  After a great discussion, M Campeau brought out all of his instruments to share with us, and we had a "jam" session.  It was so fun!

Here is a picture collage!


And here is a short video clip!  


Saturday 24 January 2015

Science Sound Centers

Hearing & Sound

Science Sound Centers Day!  January 22nd

We had such a great day on Thursday.  All four of the grade three classes spent the entire afternoon exploring many hands-on activities related to our study of hearing and sound.
Some of the stations included:

  • Tin Can Telephones
  • Kazoos
  • "Guess That Sound" game
  • Musical instruments and vibrating rice!
  • Elastic Band/Shoe box "string" instruments
Here's a picture collage of some of the fun and great learning that took place!
A big Thank You to all of our parent volunteers for coming to help us with this. 




Friday 23 January 2015

Henna

January 21st

Celebrations and Traditions in India

We are so lucky to have had a guest come and do Henna with us. Frances is mom to one of our students, so this was very exciting!  Frances, a Henna artist, also makes the Henna herself! This afternoon tied in perfectly with our study of celebrations and traditions in India.
Here are a few of the pictures of the super artwork that Frances did for the students.

Applying the Henna

Here are the before (the day of) and after (the next day) of the Henna designs.  Once the henna has dried the black paint washes off, what is left is a "stain" that will last approximately two weeks.

Here is a link to a website with more information about Henna. Art is Fun


While Frances was painting the Henna on each of the students the rest of us read this great book, Nadia's Hands by Karen English.  You can click on the book to read a "Goodreads" summary.





































Saturday 17 January 2015

Vibration = Sound!

January 14th

Today we tried a few sound experiments!

We were investigating the fact that sound is made when things move.  The movement is  called vibration, and vibrations make sound!  When vibrations are small the sound is quiet.  When something makes a big vibration the sound is loud. We also discovered that the faster an object vibrates the higher the pitch is.  The sound waves are moving faster.  We noticed that the slower an object vibrates the lower the pitch is, the sound waves are moving more slowly.


Experiment #1 ~ Elastic Band test.
We placed an elastic band between our fingers.  We plucked the elastic band to make a sound.  We could see, feel, and hear the vibration!  We tried rubber bands of different widths to see if they would make a different sound.  They did!  We also tried wrapping the elastic bands around books, our chairs,  and pencil boxes and when we plucked them they made different sounds!   Some students put several elastics together and strummed them like a guitar!  Very cool!



Experiment #2 ~ Ruler test.
We placed a ruler over the edge our our desks.  We pushed down quickly on the ruler and watched it move up and down.  We tried different lengths sticking out over the edge and noticed that the ruler vibrated and made different sounds depending on how far over the desk the ruler was hanging.  The shorter the ruler was hanging over, the higher the pitch, the faster the vibration.  The farther the ruler was hanging over, the lower the pitch, the slower the vibration was.


We also read parts of this great book from our own school library.  Simple Science Sound by Mike and Maria Gordon.




Cross Country Skiing

Thursday Jan, 15th
The weather finally cooperated and we were able to get out to try cross country skiing. We had so much fun. Thank you to all of the parents who volunteered to come and help us get our skis tied up and put on!

Saturday 10 January 2015

Happy New Year

Our inspiration for our New Year project is New Year Fireworks!
January 10th


Hearing and Sound

January 10th

This week we started our new Science unit: Hearing and Sound.

We're off to a good start!  We're excited about this new unit.

We have been playing "What's that Sound?" We have been listening to sound effects and trying to figure out what the sounds are.  It's been fun!

We have been discussing and investigating the fact: Sound is the result of vibration!

We watched the video Magic School Bus video:  Inside the Haunted House. (found on Youtube) This is a great story.  We also have the book in our classroom.

Here are a few of the things that we learned from this story:

  • sound comes from vibrations
  • vibrations move through the air
  • an echo is sound bouncing off of something
  • we saw what sound waves look like
  • we learned how instruments make sound
  • and learned that high sounds are from fast vibrations and low sounds are from slow vibrations.


Click on the book to read a Goodreads Summary.

Connecting with the World

January 10th

In Social Studies we are studying four countries:  India, Ukraine, Peru and Tunisia.  We have been using our mapping skills to locate these countries on the world map.  We have labeled the countries, discussed the continents that they are on and talked about the capital cities.  We are also working on a project on the Chromebooks finding each of the flags for the four countries.

One Geology World MapThis great interactive map helped us find the answers to our questions about location and capital cities.  If you click on the country you are taken to another page with a closer view. We were able to use our mapping skills to look at the legends and find the capital cities. Click on the link if you'd like to give it a try!

Here's what we have found out so far:

India- is a country in Asia.  The capital city is New Delhi. 

Ukraine- is a country in Europe.  The capital city is Kiev. 

Peru- is a country in South America.  The capital city is Lima. 

Tunisia- is a country in Africa.  The capital city is Tunis.