Don’t Forget that the Science Challenge Projects are due Monday!!!

Thus ended another busy week (like how I used a spelling word?)! One thing I wanted to say though was how proud I was by how hard the students worked for the Service Day. It was an amazing afternoon. Though I didn’t quite realize how long the walk was actually going to be, the students did an amazing job and hardly complained at all though I am sure they were very tired at the end of the day. It was really inspiring and I was very proud to see how enthusiastic they were and how well they pulled together to gather garbage to help keep Chilliwack clean and spread the message!

We also planted tomatoes yesterday which was a lot of fun. We talked about all sorts of things including learning about the parts of the tomato, how Earth is the same and/or different than Mars (ask your child how old they would be and how much they would weigh on Mars if they lived there!), and started filling out and completing the parts of the experiment. The tomatoes are now in their temporary home for the time being. We will be very interested to see what happens. The students had a little big of a hard time doing their observations of the tomato seed as it is very small and light and kept disappearing. However, we did manage to get all the students to plant one space seed and one regular seed. We don’t know which seed is which (as that is part of the experiment) but the general agreement is that Seeds B are the space ones as they are rougher and pointier than the Seed A group. We shall see. Anyway, it was a lot of fun.

Today was the first big dress rehearsal for The Music Man. It has been a stressful week of rehearsals but I think things have pulled together and it should be a lot of fun. As you may know the students are being joined by Mr. Shinness, Mr. Preston, Mr. Neudorf and myself. It has been a lot of fun learning the songs and singing with the other gentlemen and just being involved in a musical again. I was telling Mr. Shinness that it has been a long time since I have done a musical and being involved in this one was bringing back a lot of memories from my High School productions. Anyway, I found a couple of clips of The Music Man for you to enjoy.

My apologies! Not having had spelling for the last couple of weeks, I had forgotten to add the spelling list and memory verse to the site for this week.

Here are the spelling words for this week. Read all the way to the bottom as there are some other announcements.

Spelling N7

Here is the link to the words on Spelling City.

Our memory verse is from Proverbs 6:6:

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!

We have had an extremely busy week and it does not look like it is going to let up! Students have been doing really well with their focus and we have gotten a lot done! In math, we have gotten over the first hurdle with multiplying big numbers. We are now reviewing rounding and estimating. However, we will soon be getting back to multiplying big numbers. Any practice you can do with multiplying 2 and 3 digit numbers would be helpful.

In science, we have been having a lot of fun studying space. We have really been getting into depth with space and have been learning all about constellations and our place in the solar system. In the last few classes, we have learned about why the Sun appears to be the same size as the Moon though the Sun is so far away. We also learned how that relates to the stars as they all appear to be so close together so they are actually many light years apart. On Thursday, we are starting something very exciting. We have joined up with a group of scientists and astronauts to grow a set of 60 tomato seeds. Half of the seeds (we don’t know which) were taken into space and exposed to space conditions. The experiment is to determine whether or not the seeds that have been in space will grow differently than regular seeds. This is a real experiment and we will be sending in our results once we have completed the experiment.

Here are some other things happening:

Tomorrow (Weds), we will be participating in Earth Day. As a class, we will be walking through the neighbourhood, picking up garbage as a way to help keep Chilliwack clean. If you would like to join us, we will be going on our walk after lunch at 1:30 for about 1hr and 30 mins.

Thurs is class photo day. Students should wear their full dress uniform.

Sunday is Highroad Sunday. My family will be at Highroad for the Sunday service. Stop by and say hi and see how much Siena has grown!!

Finally, Weds is our class field trip to Science World. The permission forms went home today. Please make sure they come back signed. If you are interested in joining us, please let me know!

Wow, that was a lot of info! I guess that is what happens when you don’t write for awhile!

Well, it’s a new week! It’s seems like a long time since we have had a full week. It will be nice to get back into the swing of things without the days off to interrupt. We have a lot to do and the year is quickly going by. We have started our poetry unit and the students are all very excited to write their own poems. They are also excited by the fact that we are going to take their poems and create a real book of poetry just like any of the books on your selves. It will be bound and published like a real book using the poetry the students have written during the poetry unit. It will be a lot of fun and I am excited to see the poems the students will write.

Our new challenge this week is a bit of a strange one and definitely a challenge. I was sitting at home and I was strangely wishing there was still snow on the ground. Well, I thought that would make a great challenge!

So here is the challenge!!!!

Create a (paper) snowball launcher from a rubberband, 2 paperclips, tongs, and a pencil. Launch the snowballs but remember YOU MAY NOT TOUCH THE PAPER WITH YOUR HANDS! You may use other materials in your design but it must include the objects listed.

Well, the house challenges are in and, I have to you, I was really impressed not just with the finished product but also with the response. I had many of you come to me and tell me how much fun  this project was and how you enjoyed the time you got to spend with your children working together to do it.

The finished projects were truly amazing, each and every one of them. Every student had a different idea and a completely different solution to the problem which is exactly what I wanted. I wanted the students to think outside the box; to look creatively at a problem and that is exactly what they all did; with your support. Thank you for really coming together on this. Every students got the full marks for the project.

I created an animoto of the product which is displayed below.

Apparently, this year is the International Year of Astronomy! This past week, they had a wonderful series of videos on 100hrs of Astronomy where they discussed and visited 80 telescopes both in the world and in Space talking to leading astronomers and scientists who use these telescopes to learn more about our fascinating and beautiful universe.

I have included the introduction video and the video about the Hubble Telescopes. There are some wonderful pictures and neat information about what the scientists and telescopes are doing to help us learn more about space. Unfortunately, the videos have ads in them. If you wait, the ads do go away.

Here is the link to the page with the videos talking about the other telescopes.

Oh yeah!!!!1 That’s right!!!! Oilers win!!!!!

We had a wonderful day yesterday with out Hockey Jersey Day. In anticipation of the Oilers playing Canucks, we were allowed to wear our hockey jerseys. Sadly, there were a number of people in the class who wore Canucks jerseys. I say unfortunate because it is sad to see so many people who have been brainwashed into thinking that Canucks are better than the Oilers! Very Sad!

Luckily, the students in the class came into my grade 3 class at just the right time to correct this problem. Though progress is slow, I believe the truth about Oilers superiority is coming out. Besides myself, another student in the class wore their Oilers jersey (and a vintage one at that!). It was very gratifying to see the positive influence I am beginning to have. Some students may take longer to realize the truth (that means you, Stef!) but I think eventually they will come around!

I hope your science projects are going well. In fact, why don’t you take a break and watch this video I found. It is the trailer for a new movie coming out in the fall based on the famous children’s book, Where The Wild Things Are. It looks really good. I can’t wait to see it.

Don’t forget that tomorrow is hockey jersey day! You can wear your favorite hockey jersey on top of your uniform (Preferably Oiler or Canuck)!!!