News for January 23

News for January 23

This four-day week the students started a big project....our weekly Room 5 Interview Show! Every week, two students will interview a school staff member. The children had to think of all the parts of a TV show from the questions to the credits. This week Etienne and Lola U. interviewed the principal of our school, Mrs. Farrelly. Please look for the video in a separate posting.

In math, the children finished the unit on 3D geometry. As a connection to learning about Chinese New Year, the students reviewed shape names as they folded red envelopes (lai see) to create a 3D lantern to decorate the hallway outside of our classroom. They also had a chance to create 3D figures out of paper "nets". Finally, they finished up the unit by completing a review sheet of 2D and 3D geometry concepts.

In science, the children did some experiments to look at mixing liquids and solids. A solid plastic die does not dissolve in water but a sugar cube does. Vegetable oil did not mix with water but did when liquid soap was added. 

The class learned about how wool is processed from the sheep to knitted and woven fabric. This week we started this unit of study by dyeing the natural white sheep's wool with Kool-aid (for example, lime Kool-aid creates green). After dissolving the solid crystals into a tub of water, the students learned that vinegar is added so that the colour stays on the wool and hot water is used to speed up the process, but doesn't change what would otherwise happen (in science, this is called a "catalyst").

The class used our list of what makes a fairy tale different from other fiction stories to analyze the fairy tales, The Emperor's New Clothes and Chicken Licken. Each student was challenged to write his/her own fairy tale that has at least three fairy tale characteristics. The whole class managed to finished planning these stories and are now working on the rough copies.

We continued our vocabulary building this week by taking the cards the children made last week and choosing some every day to talk about. "Honour" and "transport" are just two examples...

The class worked on our movie about Flat Stanley and the flat students that the children made. We thought about all the different things the students did around the school and then we took photos and videos of the students doing things with their "flat" friends. Look for the video in another posting!

At the end of the week, the children began to design the covers for their new art journals. So, not only will they create art inside the journal but they will also design and make the journal itself. This week they used sharpie marker to make an abstract design and learned how to use watercolour pencil crayons to add colour to the spaces in their design.

Books read aloud this week:

The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen

Pelle's New Suit by Elsa Beskow

Farmer Brown Shears His Sheep by Teri Sloat