Wondering

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Today I would like you to explore these links to Wonderopolis questions that match the Science units we are investigating right now.

In the comments section, write a summary of one of the questions. Please remember to sign your name and answer with full sentences that start with capitals and end with proper punctuation.

Grade Four Questions
Solar Lights
Music and Mood
Changing Colour
Vision Impairment and Technology
Night Vision

Grade Five Questions
Crackling Wood
Helium and Voice
Plasma Ball
Beginning of Earth
Diamonds
Quicksand
Matter
Hot Foggy Water

Geometry, Light, and Sound

We are looking at geometry in math with a focus on what properties shapes have and how we can use those properties to describe, compare, and understand shapes. We started with an activity to see what we already know about quadrilaterals and triangles. It seems we know a lot about sides but need to learn some more about the angles. We also need to learn more about the specific kinds of triangles (grade 5) and quadrilaterals (grade 4).

Today we looked at some of the benchmark angles and took a look around our room for examples. In looking, we noticed that there are a lot of right angles in our room because our room is full of squares and rectangles. That got us thinking: if the triangle is such a strong shape, why do we have so many squares and rectangles in our building? Well, I asked a carpenter that happened to be in our room after school and I've got some data that we can talk about tomorrow.

Sorry for the orientation of these pictures! Bonus question: how many degrees would I have to turn these pictures to get them to face the right way?

What is happening in these pictures? Only the grade 4s will know. Ask them and see what they say!

Aquaponics

Our Aquaponics System

Our class is making an aquaponics system. An aquaponics system is a food production system that combines conventional aquaculture (raising water animals such as fish, snails, etc.) in tanks, with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water). Basically, the fish waste fertilizes the plants and the plants clean out the water for the fish. It's in the corner of our room!

Right now it is in pieces. The fish are staying in a bucket with a pump. A dad from our school has an aquaponics in his yard. He is going to make a few changes on the system before we put it together. One thing he wants to do is change the pipes from flexible tubing to hard plastic tubing. 

We hope to grow kale, lettuce, and maybe peppers in our aquaponics. We also hope to feed our guinea pigs, Charlie and Lola, with the vegetables.

Long Time No Blog

I apologize for the lengthy absence blog followers!

Here is a short video of students being very quiet and focused during a math gallery walk. The purpose was to look at everyone's solutions for a math problem and to try and understand the different ways that others did the work. Afterwards, we rated the solutions for efficiency.

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The Haunted House was a grand success. I was so happy to see the students collaborating with room 209 and to fully share the experience. We all worked together and did a great job at focusing. 

We have also welcomed Emma Brooks for the University of Ottawa who will be our student teacher for most of November. She has already proven to be a confident and comfortable addition to our team. 

We continue our look at Forces Acting on Structures and Flight in Science. The grade 5s spent some time with Shauna looking at some different types of forces and how they effect certain structures. The grade 6s stayed with me and took a look at some of the properties of air. 

We are also continuing our look at Social Studies of Early Civilizations and First Nation Peoples and European Explorers. Emma will be combining this unit with some drama in the upcoming days.

In math, we recently took a look at mean, median, and mode. We have completed a Reflective Math Journal entry and will be using our Halloween Candy Data assignment to have some more practice.

Next up, we will be doing a unit on Patterning.

We recently Skyped with Ms. Rodriguez's class in the States to discuss our Global Read Aloud. I was away but I heard the students did a fantastic job. The story was being covered by a local newspaper on their end!

In Language, we are going to continue ECLIPSE but we are going to start getting more structured with our writing. So far, students have been allowed to have free choice during writing. I am now going to be giving them more structure with a writing purpose to focus on. Their writing has been very creative and descriptive. We will now focus on capitals, punctuation, editing, and planning our writing more completely before beginning a first draft.

I hope you are enjoying the Home Missions calendar that was sent home last week. I would love feedback as to how they are going. As always, please let me know if you would like to come in and volunteer or if you have any questions or comments.

Tiiu