News for February 12
This week the children continued giving the "Canadian Flag Facts" on the school announcements every morning. Every student has now had a chance to be a part of this project. The Canadian flag turns 50 years old on Sunday, February 15th and the class shared some of the cool facts that they learned with the rest of the school.
In math, the students learned how to read thermometers and a bit about negative numbers (when talking about temperatures below zero). The children gathered up snow and put water outside to freeze and then monitored the temperature as the ice/snow melted. They also measured the temperature of recently boiled water. The class saw that the temperature of water takes on the temperature of the air around it, so, after awhile, the snow and ice melted and warmed up to room temperature and the boiling water cooled down to room temperature. The class discussed the "benchmark" temperatures that are important to know:
100C - water boils
37C - human body temperature
around 20 C - room temperature
0C - water freezes
-273C - absolute zero (all molecular motion stops)
The students reviewed information about the six Canadian coins. (Actually five coins are used now since we've stopped using the penny.) The class reviewed how to count money using what they know about skip counting.
The children finished their first person narrative stories about being a pencil. These are now displayed on the bulletin board outside of our classroom. The students even made the letters for the sign...out of pencils!
We began talking about the next writing unit on poetry. Poetry is interesting because there really are no rules. You can make up words, write words upside down or in the shape of shoe, if you want! We began however, by learning about an ancient Sanskrit poem, Salutation to the Dawn, attributed to the Indian poet Kalidasa, who lived about 1,500 years ago. This poem reminds us to be grateful for each day in our lives. The students did a cooperative art project by taking words from the poem and painting them on large pieces of paper. These are now on display on the bulletin boards in our classroom, where the students can read them easily, as we read the poem together every morning. Here is a video of the students reciting the poem:
Our research posters about living and working in Ontario are finally all finished. The children worked very hard to complete these projects and they are now on display in the stairwell by our classroom. We started to make a video to record the interesting facts we learned and that video will be posted next week.
Our class now has a set of three iPads to use. The children used the iPads to explore an app of one of the books we read this week, Oliver Jeffers' Heart and the Bottle.
We had a Valentine's Day celebration on Friday. The students decorated paper bags to hold the valentines from their friends and they learned how to fold origami paper hearts to give to their family and friends.
During our computer lab time, the students explored the children's site:
Our Flag: The Story of Canada's Maple Leaf by Anne Maureen Owens
Heart and the Bottle by Oliver Jeffers
The Maple Leaf by Barb McDermott
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