Sorting Rocks

This week in science we discussed different properties of rocks and how to organize, sort and classify them. Students used their own rock collections and sorted their rocks into categories of colour, shape, and texture.  After they sorted their rocks they were asked to come up with ways to describe each of the properties. I loved listening to the discussions and watching how engaged they were in the activity.  Way to go!

Testing soil

December 1st

Today the students had a close look at three types of soil to help deepen their understanding of what soil is comprised of. Students filled out a chart listing identifying features such as colour, texture, and particle size.

Silver Cove

Tuesday, October 11th

Silver Cove came to do their amazing "hands on" Rock Talk with us today!  We always love this presentation. Chris has so much knowledge to share, we learned a lot!  And he gives out rocks as prizes so that's even more exciting!

Here are a few of the highlights.

Building and Testing Designs

May 26th

This was a fun building challenge!  Our question:  Which is the strongest material to use for a joint on a cube made of toothpicks?  A marshmallow, a jujube or plasticine.

We found out that the jujubes are by far the strongest!

Guitars!

February 6th.

Hearing and Sound

This week we were busy learning about pitch and volume.  The purpose of the guitar building activity was to give the students a hands-on learning opportunity.   They had to build their instrument and then use their guitar to demonstrate and explain to me the difference between volume and pitch.  I met with each student individually to watch and listen to their explanation.

Volume is how loud or soft a sound is.  Pitch is how high or low a sound is.  

Students discovered that when they strum their guitar quickly, the volume is loud.  When they strum their guitar slowly, the volume is quiet.  When they tighten the strings by holding their fingers down on them, the pitch is higher. When they loosen the strings by removing their fingers, then the pitch is lower.

They are all pretty proud of their work.  Check it out below!

Here are a few pictures of the guitar building in action.

Here's a group shot!  They're rockin' out!

And a slideshow!

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.

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.

Erosion

November 30th
Last week in science we talked about erosion.  We learned that forces on the earth such as ice, wind and water can cause erosion.  We discovered that the earth is always changing.  Forces on the earth's surface break up, wear away and move the land.  We completed a couple of notebook pages, read a story and also watched a Bill Nye video to extend our learning.  We are also in the process of doing our own erosion experiment.  We are looking forward to finding out what happens when a water soaked rock (briquette) freezes.
We were excited to hear Bill Nye explain how the hoodoos were formed.  Many of our students have seen hoodoos in Drumheller before!

http://www.traveldrumheller.com/index.php/directory/7-Drumheller-Hoodoos

For more information about erosion you can check out this really cool link from the OneGeology Website!  Earth Processes

PART TWO:  

Here is the conclusion of our rock, water and ice experiment.  We found out that water expands when it freezes.  When the rock thaws it is brittle and cracked causing sediments to break off of the rock. The water and ice, and freezing and thawing cause the rock to erode.