In the spirit of Halloween, we got a little "batty" this week, with some fantastic chalk pastel art! But if we're going to do art with bats, we really should learn more about them! We began our investigations by first reviewing what we know already. We had so many stories about bats and lots of great facts to put on the board, but we still had plenty of lingering questions to investigate. Madame: "Where can we find the answers to our questions?" Us: "Google! Siri! Alexa! YouTube! ...Facebook?" Madame: "Ok, yes, perhaps... but can you think of one more?" Us: *silence* *confusion* Madame: "Do you think we could find some answers in a book?" Us: *shrugging* *shifting in seats uncomfortably* ... "Maybe?" Clearly, we needed to backtrack a couple of decades to when books were considered a valuable source of information. So the next day... BOOKS! Us: "But Madame, we can't read!" Madame: "Maybe not, but you can look at the pictures for clues!" So out came the sticky notes and we were tasked with getting with a partner to find 3 interesting pages. It was amazing how much information we were able to learn just from those pictures that had intrigued us. From all of our discoveries, we were able to summarize some of our findings and pose for some pictures to create a little book of our own. Here's a little teaser before the big publishing date... "Bats eat fruit, insects, frogs, mice, and even other bats." "La chauve-souris mange des fruits, des insectes, des grenouilles, des souris, et des autres chauves-souris." "Bats use echolocation to find food at night." "La chauve-souris utilise l'écholocation pour trouver la nourriture pendant la nuit." To be continued... Also in the spirit of Halloween, we did a spooky ghost experiment this week. Which film canister ghost would fly the highest when we put an alka seltzer tablet inside?... the one with hot water, cold water, or lukewarm water? We made some great hypotheses, but surprisingly, the winner was lukewarm water! It flew way up into the tree! The hot water seemed like it should fly the highest, but the pill dissolved so quickly that Madame couldn't even get the ghost back onto the ground before it exploded! So in the end, the warm water was the winner! And then there were...leeeeeeeaves!!!!... We had so much fun running through them, jumping in them, rolling on them, and throwing them. Extra photos...
Madame went to the pumpkin patch on the weekend with her own kids and it was the perfect inspiration for some science and math activities with the class! We compared the pumpkins with some apples and "hypothesized" (a new word!) about which would be bigger when we measured it, which would be heavier, which would float... Then naturally, we had to test our hypotheses! We even had to do some metric conversions. Madame says that if we found that part confusing, not to worry - we don't actually have to know most of those things until Grade 6! But it's fun to get little tasters of it now. Our favourite hypothesis to test was definitely the one about which would roll faster down a hill - the pumpkin or the apple? We made some predictions and took a vote on which one we thought would win. Many of us were surprised that the pumpkin won the race! We decided to test it in another setting - the slides! On the slides, it was the apple that kept winning! But why was it so different from our results from the hill? We talked about how in science, there's a word called "variables" that could change our results. Some variables that we brainstormed that either were present or COULD have been present: - On the hill, it was Madame that released both the apple and the pumpkin at the same time and with the same amount of force. On the slides, different kids released the apple and pumpkin at different times and may have pushed one or the other. - The stem could have slowed the pumpkin down. - Either the pumpkin or the apple could have been slowed down by objects or even holes in their path on the grass. It was a pumpkin kind of week as we also completed the art we began with our big buddies. In Math, we have been continuing to learn about patterns. Madame even taught us how to create patterns using musical notation. We were so interested in the different types of notes and loved trying out the rhythms both solo and as a group. We also learned about "increasing patterns" this week and Madame had us start out by demonstrating with our bodies what those might look like. ...and then we built them with blocks! And we finally got some scores on the board for our class teams! Madame gave us a group challenge - make a boat using tinfoil and popsicle sticks, and whichever boat holds the most nickels before sinking, wins! But the REAL embedded challenge is: Can you get along with your group? Can you compromise? Can you listen to other people's ideas? Can you all work together to produce ONE project? Madame front-loaded us with all of these communication challenges we might face and told us that if we could overcome them well, we would get 10 points for our teams just for demonstrating teamwork. She explained that arguments are normal, even for adults! We will all disagree... and often! But how we manage our disagreements and how we learn to de-escalate rather than escalate our frustrations - those are key skills to learn. We started by making plans... Then we executed those plans, usually adapting from our original ideas as we tested our designs and listened to others' suggestions. Some of us felt a little overwhelmed at first: "But I don't know how to make a boat!" But we quickly realized that it didn't actually need to look like a traditional boat. It just needed to be functional. Then we began to see the creativity flow. And the winner was "Corbeaux" (crows), whose boat managed to hold 38 nickels! Their team got 2 bonus points for the most effective design, and we all got 10 points on the board for teamwork. Some of us even got an extra point for cleaning up our group's area really well. Extra photos...
"I solemnly swear I am up to no good." We took inspiration from Harry Potter this week and divided our class into "house teams". But instead of a magical sorcerer's sorting hat, we used a magical CHEESE hat. Because French people, cheese... you know, it's a whole thing. We put the cheese hat on our heads and let a spinner decide our fate for the rest of the year. (...with perhaps a bit of "tweaking" from Madame at the end to make things balanced). We have four teams, each represented by a different animal with Indigenous symbolization: - Les corbeaux, known for wisdom and creativity - Les castors, known for perseverance and teamwork - Les ours, known for courage, strength, and humility - Les grenouilles, known for wealth, being good at change/adapting, and being good communicators We began colouring some Indigenous art from the Salish, Haïda, and Haisla Nations to represent our animals. Madame said that she will make our art into wearable buttons so that we can display our team spirit! This week's Math lessons have been brought to you by... PATTERNS! We've been doing them with blocks, on paper, in nature, and on the drums. We also got officially assigned to a big buddy this week! (The last time we got together, it was just to be introduced to one another. Our teachers hadn't actually created partnerships between us yet). To get to know our official buddies better, we did a fun one-on-one discussion activity with a page that said ME on one side, and WE when flipped over. We wrote things we had in common with each other on the WE side and things where we differed on the ME side. We were all very pumped to spend time with the big guys and even got to spend some time playing on the playground with them again. Extra photos...
We ended up with fabulously warm weather for our Terry Fox run and neon themed day. Bravo to all of the kids for their amazing efforts on the run! It was also pyjama day this week! It was great to come back from a long weekend in our comfy clothes. We have been talking a lot about using our "WITS"- a strategy we will continually practice using throughout the year to resolve conflict. If someone is bothering us, we should first try to Walk away and/or Ignore them. If that doesn't work, then we Talk to them ("Stop! I don't like that!"). And if that still doesn't work, then we should Seek help. If we try to come to Madame about a conflict before we try our W, I, T, then she will start sending us back to try using these strategies first. The goal is to empower us to work through our conflicts independently, with the knowledge that an adult WILL help us if our independent efforts aren't working. We shouldn't have to resort to using our hands or feet to solve our problems. In French news, we are loving celebrating our friends whenever they move up to a new reading level. Sometimes reading, math, and writing can be really tricky! But Madame worked with us this week on the message from the back of our classroom: "Je jeux faire des choses difficiles". (I can do hard things). We are capable of anything if we don't give up and keep on practicing! An equally important message: "Mistakes are how we LEARN!" And we have someone to celebrate in our classroom - Claire! She persevered with the vowels challenge and found an actual English word (that is NOT onomatopoeia) without ANY vowels! She will go down in history, along with one other student of Madame's, who has actually found a workable word! Félicitations, Claire! (Hmm... Madame may have to reduce the cash prize next year. Haha!) With Thanksgiving this weekend, we learned a song all about what we're thankful for. And with the song in mind, we brainstormed our own list of things we're thankful for, then created paper chains with one item listed on each piece of the chain. Some of us got really excited about this activity and wanted to make our chains as LONG as possible! Extra photos...
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