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News, Spelling, and Videos, Oh My!

News, Spelling, and Videos, Oh My!

smb_singing_glowstarIt’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Well . . . not really but I was in a singing mood. We have a busy week ahead of us.

Friday is a half day with elementary dismissed at 12:15.

Wednesday is Ski Registration in the Church Foyer. I am looking for someone to help out with that. If you are interested, we will be going from 3:10 – 3:45. Any help would be appreciated.

We will be having a short Science quiz on Wednesday. The quiz will cover the following items:

1. How clouds are made – evaporated air rises up and is cooled as it goes higher into the atmosphere. The cooled air turns back into clouds and water vapour which then comes down as precipitation. We saw this when we took boiling water and placed it in a jar and put ice cubes on the top.

2. Types of clouds:

  • Cumulus – fluffy clouds that can be seen on a nice day. However, when they get dark and turn into cumulonimbus, they bring rain and storms.
  • Cirrus – thin wispy clouds high in the sky that appear on nice days.
  • Stratus – low fog found close to the ground.

3. Properties of Air

  • Air has weight
  • Air has force
  • Hot air rises, cold air sinks
  • Air takes up space
  • Air takes the shape of its container
  • Air has volume – The students have trouble with this one. It basically mean how much air is inside something just like how much milk can fit in a carton. Some containers can hold more air than others.
  • Air exerts pressure – Air doesn’t like to be trapped. When you pop a balloon, air comes out. When you let go of the balloon, if the hole is opened, all the air will come out. It won’t stay inside.
  • Hot air expands, cold air contracts – When we put the balloon in the freezer, it shrunk because the air molecules came closer together. Once it was outside the freezer, it started to get bigger again because the air molecules spread further apart.

Here is the spelling for this week with the Spelling City links:

L-5

N-5

Here are the links to Spelling City:

L5 N5

Finally, here is a video that I introduced the students to today. It is a really neat video showing the brain of a mouse from the skull all the way down to the creation of new neurons. It is absolutely fascinating. We have talked alot this year about creating and strengthening our neurons by being creative and thinking outside the box. Speaking of which, Science challenges are due tomorrow!

And Now For Something Completely Different!

And Now For Something Completely Different!

It’s been awhile since we have had something fun on the blog and I found something really funny to share with you but first . . .

One of my fantastic students did something that I thought was really cool and I wanted to share it with you. As you may or may not know, at the end of every day, I play Rock, Paper, Scissors with my students. Unbeknown to me, Spencer, one of my totally cool and awesome students, has been graphing the results of our competitions! He brought it in to show me and I think it is one of the coolest things I have seen. How cool to see Math applied to real life things.  He even sorted by what was used each time by each of us. It was just perfect and I wanted to share his graph with you. I took the photo awhile ago but here it is. I’m probably winning by a lot now since the photo was taken . . .:) I think it is really amazing!

DSCI0099-1

I am in need of 12 glass jars for Science. If anyone would be willing to lend us some glass jars for about a week, that would be great. You will get them back at the end of the lesson (unbroken, of course!).

I found this video yesterday and I thought it was one of the funniest videos that I have seen in awhile. So here it is. Enjoy and we’ll see you tomorrow!

The Water Cycle Makes It . . . Rain . . . Rain!

The Water Cycle Makes It . . . Rain . . . Rain!

water-drop-aWe have had some fun this week in Science. Students have been learning about the Water Cycle and how the water goes from liquids to gas back to liquids again in a cycle of evaporation and condensation. To show this, we did a great experiment yesterday where Mr. Hancock brought his OVEN MITTS OF SCIENCE to school. You can try this experiment at home as well. All you need is a kettle, a tin plate, water and ice cubes.

  1. Put 250 mls of water in the kettle and start it boiling. This will change the water to steam or water vapour. Water vapour is a gas. You can pretend that this is the water found on Earth being heated by the sun and evaporating into our air.
  2. Put the ice cubes into the tray and hold it over the steam. The ice cubes cool the gas or water vapour and collects it on the bottom of the ray. This is called condensation. This is just like the water vapour in our air being cooled as it travels up into the atmosphere. As it cools, it collects into clouds and turns back into water in the process called condensation.
  3. Watch the tin plate or cloud changing more and more water vapour back into water. As more and more collects, it starts to get too heavy and it starts to rain or precipitate.

It was a very cool experiment. Today, we reviewed our material by playing Science Jeopardy and starting our project on making Water Cycle posters describing the whole process. We also watched some fun videos about the water cycle which I am putting down below for your enjoyment.

If you would like to download the Water Cycle song, click here!

On Friday, students will be participating in the Terry Fox Run. We will be running or walking around the field starting at about 9:30. We are asking students to bring in a Loonie or Toonie to raise awareness of this terrible disease.

How’s the Weather In Glocca Morra?

How’s the Weather In Glocca Morra?

climate-changeIn science we have been learning about weather and climate. One would think that would be easy when you see it right outside your window. However, there are many things to learn about how the weather works. Today, students were learning about the difference between weather and climate. Weather is all about what is happening in the atmosphere or sky all the time. Climate doesn’t change from hour to hour. Put simply, climate is the average weather in an area of the world. Students also learned that there are climate controls or things that make climates different in different places in the world. One of those is how close you are to the equator. Another is how close you are to a large body of water. Here is a nice video that shows the differences:

Bill Nye has great videos and here is a great one talking about climate and weather:

Finally, students earned their party for hard work and good behaviour. Students will be having a party on Thursday. If you would like to contribute anything, that would be appreciated. However, students are not obligated to bring anything.

Also, our class is looking for any spare wireless computer mice. If you have extras kicking around the class or would like to donate one, we would like to use them for interacting with the smartboard during Math time.

Thanks!climate2

A Good News and Bad News Sort of Day

A Good News and Bad News Sort of Day

10,000 Visitors!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, that’s right! We have made it to 10,000 visitors!!! Over the past year we have had 7,000+ people visit our blog. It has been amazing seeing visitors from all over the world take a peek on the things we are doing and learning here. Getting nominated and being a finalist for Education blog and being the Edublog of the Week jsut recently are only a couple of the great things that have happened since starting the blog. However, the best thing has been the excitement, fun and the learning that continues to happen for our students outside the walls of our class through the use of this blog! I hope that it continues to be a powerful tool for you. As well, this blog will always be a place for former students and families to come and check out to see what is going on. Pleas come back.

If you are one of our visitors, please take a moment to send us a comment and help us celebrate this milestone!

Now for the bad news.

We had a bit of a tragedy today in Science. Mr. Hancock was carried the tomato plant tray over to a separate area of the class so that the students would not have to crowd around the desks to see the plants, when suddenly the tomato tray slid off the desk and landed, kerplunk!, on the floor.

Woe!!! Oh poor tomatoes!

Mr. Hancock tried to pick them up and repair the damage as best as he could. However, they are now all mixed up and some of them may not survive. The next 24hrs will be very important in determining whether the emergency surgery on the tomatoes worked. Hopefully they will re-root themselves and continue to grow. This could affect our experiment as the conditions have now changed. Time will tell.

Here are some pictures of the plants today. You can definitely tell the difference. The damaged ones (Seed B) are on the right.

We were also talking today about photosynthesis and how tomato plants help create the air we breathe. We also learned that the little hairs on the tomato plant secrete a liquid that make the smell of the tomato plants and also deter insects from wanting to hurt the plant. Very cool! Here is a video about photosynthesis.

On Friday, one of our students is leaving us. As the students have finally obtained their last star, we are going to have a combined party to celebrate getting to 10,000 visitors on our blog and to give our student a final farewell send-off. If you would like to donate something as a snack for the party, please bring it by around lunch hour or in the morning with your child. Thank you!

Tomato Seeds Are A Go in T Minus 9…8…7…

Tomato Seeds Are A Go in T Minus 9…8…7…

Thursday was a busy day last week with the start of our second year doing the Tomatosphere tomato growing project. The students were all excited to get planting. As this is a multi-year project, our class was automatically signed up to do the tomato seed project again this year. As I told the students, this experiment is an actual live experiment with our results being combined with class across Canada in a test to see the viability in growing plants in a zero gravity environment. This year is very special as these seeds have actually been in space!

To start, we discussed why this experiment was important and why we might want to find the answer to this questions. We learned that the amount of food needed to go to Mars would be too great an amount to fit comfortably on the space shuttle packaged as it is now. However, if astronauts were able to grow their food on the way, it would not only save space, but also help provide clean air and water and give the astronauts something to do on the way.

We then used the links (you can find them on the left hand side) to learn more about Mars and compare it to Earth. We also had fun learning how old each of the students would be if they lived on Mars as well as how much they would weigh! I have to say, after all my wife’s wonderful cooking, Mars is looking pretty good right now!

Next, we learned about the tomato seed and plant and ended the morning by planting our seeds! Students planted two types of seeds: regular seeds and space seeds. As this is a real life experiment, we needed regular seeds to compare. However, WE DON’T KNOW WHICH ARE WHICH!!!!! In order to make sure there was no favoritism, we are not told which seeds are which until the end of the experiment! I LOVE SUSPENSE!!!

As the days go by we will be making observations. The success point for these seeds is whether or not they grow two leaves. We hope they will grow more of course but we need at least two leaves from each plant in order for the plant to be considered successful. At the end, students will be able to take the plants home. Hopefully students will get to take both types home but we will see.

I found some video on plant seed growth and germination. The first one is from the book The Carrot Seed, which is a very old book and not having anything to do with tomatoes but just substitute carrots for tomatoes in your head.

The second video is a neat animation of the journey of a seed which is kind of neat and is theoretically one way a seed can move from place to place.

The next video is a neat time-lapse showing the growth and germination of radish seeds; again nothing to do with tomatoes other than the same growth a tomato seed would go through if we could see our seeds from the side.

Enjoy and check tomorrow to see if there has been any growth in our tomato seeds!

Finding a Solution By Dissolving

Finding a Solution By Dissolving

It has been a fast couple of weeks in Mr. H’s class. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t wonder incredulously where the time has gone. We have been having so much fun and there are so many events crowding the days in May that we may have to do May all over just so we can get everything in! Show of hands . . .?

Anyway, the students have been working very hard on all sorts of projects. In Social, students have been discussing and learning about jobs in the community. You can see a list of the jobs we brainstormed below:

Students are now working on reports on a type of job they are interested in. We used a couple of great kid friendly sites to learn more about specific careers and students are using the information to help them create their reports. We will also be doing Animotos of the jobs they have chosen to present to the class!

Science has been fascinating with lots of experiments happening as we continue with our unit on Properties of Matter. Students have been creating different kinds of solutions and testing to see what kinds of solids will dissolve in water. We have a couple of very interesting experiments happening. One of the experiments looks like it might take longer than I expected as the water does not seem to be evaporating as quickly as I would have like. As a demonstration, to created a solution of water and salt in a bowl, placed a sour cream container on top and wrapped the whole thing with saran-a-wrap. We had been talking about how important it was to take care of our water as part of Earth Day and how places like Saudi Arabia were having trouble with their water supply. It was a great topic because we had just had some visitors to our blog from Saudi Arabia that very morning. I told the students that Saudi Arabia was starting to look at changing salt water from the ocean to regular water for drinking and irrigation. That afternoon, when I did the demonstration, students were able to hypothesize that the salt water would evaporate into the container leaving the salt behind in the bowl. We then connected this to what Saudi Arabia might have to do to get more water! It was a great conversation! We are also creating crystals from sugar water. So two experiments on the go!

register-nowWe will also be starting another long term project next week. Once again, our class has been sent seeds from the tomatosphere project which is run with the Canadian Space Agency. Classes are sent to packages of seeds; one package which are regular seeds and another package containing seeds that have been in space! We will be testing the seeds to see if being in space will make a difference to how the seeds grow. Problem is . . . we don’t know which are which! When the project is done and our results have been submitted, we will find out which seeds were the space seeds! Here is a video about the project:

Needed: In your child’s planners, students wrote down some very strange things. I asked the students to look around at home, with the help of their parents, to see if any of these items could be found at home and brought in to school to use for a Science experiment. I don’t expect families to purchase these things. I just want to check to see if there was any that could be lying around just waitin’ and askin’ to be used for the good of Science! If you have these items but expect to use them again, please don’t send them in as they may not come back in the best of shape! I am also wondering if anyone knows of a place in town that does helium balloons. Hmmmm!

For the next couple of weeks, we will not be having spelling tests as I would like to give students time to practice for the Spelling Bee. On May 17th, selected students will be participating in our school’s Spelling Bee. On the prior Friday, we will have our own Spelling Bee in the class to select students to go to the Spelling Bee. We will be selecting 4 students per grade to go. You should have seen a list of words and and letter in your child’s planner to explain the procedures. The words for the spelling bee will be selected from the words on the pages sent home.

Whew! That’s a lot of stuff! I should do this more often!!! 🙂

Finally, yesterday was a very special day especially for Jacob. It was May the 4th; the unofficial Star Wars holiday! (Get it? May the fourth?) Anyway, I found a funny video to help us celebrate even though we are a little late!

Still Here!

Still Here!

kidchemistryIt has been a wonderful week and the students have all been working very hard even with all the distractions with the weather and the bookfair competing for their attention.

In Language Arts, students have finished looking at the organization of a story and have started their second story with this focus. We have discussed and worked through what makes an exciting beginning, how we use things like time to organize our middle and how to end a story so that the reader is left with a feeling of satisfaction. Talking about it is one thing, though. Actually, doing it is another. So students have been practicing these things in their stories. Our latest story is an adventure with a leprechaun which goes with our recent St. Patrick’s day theme. With that story, we did a lot of brainstorming with ways to keep our leprechaun from getting away and we also did a lot of brainstorming of ways to start our story. We are working on and practicing these concepts with the goal of creating a storybook about the adventures of Bob, my evil twin brother. Each child will get to write about one of his adventures which we will then compile into a storybook. We have also connected with a group of classes around the States to create a story with each class taking a section of the story. We are the second class in the list so we are just waiting for the first class to write the beginning before we can add our piece.

The students were very excited for today! No. Not just because it is a half day. It was because the students had their first chance to go to the computer lab. Starting today, we will going to the computer lab on Fridays after first recess. Students will be doing a variety of activities including writing stories, doing art, working with maps and other fun activities. It was really fun and the students did a fantastic job of listening and watching for what they needed to do. I had already worked with a group of “helpers” who had already practiced the techniques for logging on, etc so that when we did go to the lab, they were able to help out those students who were having problems. They did a fantastic and were extremely helpful!!! We also used a new website (start.io/mrhancock) as a way for students to quickly find the resources they need without having to worry about typing in long addresses or searching for websites. It was great fun.

What do you think of when someone says properties of matter to you? If you said, “What’s the matter?” then you need to swing by our classroom at Science time! Students have been learning about the properties of matter as part of our Science unit. If you don’t recall, matter comes in three different forms: solid, liquid and gas. So far we have been looking at different types of liquids and how they react when they mix. We will be doing lots of experiments in this unit and learning lots of things. Here is a cute video to get you up to speed on your properties of matter.

Mea Culpa

Mea Culpa

It’s been a busy week and thus the blog posts have been few and far between. My apologies and I will try to be more regular with my posts.

First of all, there is no spelling list or memory verse for this week due to the shortened week. We will continue with the spelling and memory verse next week as per usual. After this next spelling list, we will be going back to review past spelling words and start doing more work with them in sentence form.

speech1You may have noticed that your child brought home a poem in their planner (or pocket as the case may be). It is that time of year again and we are preparing for the Speech Meet which is held annually in Abbotsford. This is a big event for us and we always do very well. However, this year is a little different for us as we have a winter break between now and the day of the Speech Meet, which will be held on March 5. As we want to get our entries in before we leave, we will be choosing the students who will be going on February 10th. Participation is optional and if your child did not bring home a poem or memory verse that may mean they did not want to do it. Please ask your child if they selected a verse or poem to practice. Poems or memory verses must be memorized. We are also working on adding expression and proper standing postures to the recitations with students standing nice and straight with no hands in their pockets and their eyes on the audience. Adding expression is always hard for students but we are looking for students who can recite with confidence using a proper volume and with excitement in their voices. On February 10th, we will hear all the students from our class who chose to do a recitation and I will pick students from there. We are allowed to send 1 poem reader and 1 memory verse reader from the Grade 2 and 1 poem reader and 1 memory verse reader from the Grade 3’s in my class. If you have any questions or you need another copy of the poem please let me know!

Science has been a frantic, “let’s finish it up” time with students trying to get all their projects and papers done and in order before the deadline. Looking at the budgets from each class, all students were able to complete their projects on time and within budget. Luckily the storekeeper was very kind and gave some great deals towards the end of the projects. Projects will be going home tomorrow, but you can see them right now by watching the video below!

Our next science unit will be on States of Matter where students will be taking a close look at the properties of air, water, and gas.

In Language Arts, we have been continuing with our Daily 3 reading program. It has really been great to be able to work with small groups of students at the same time. As I work with the students in these small groups listening to them reading and working on certain aspects of their reading and comprehension skills, the other students are focused on sharing reading with a partner, reading on their own or reading along with a Cd. It has been a great program. For our writing, we have moved into organization of stories with a focus at this point on story beginnings. We have talked about how a story beginning needs to draw in readers and make them want to keep reading. One of the students today said that it is like writing the first part of a story and putting a “to be continued” at the end of it. It makes the reader interested in how the story is going to resolve itself. We took some common events from throughout the year, and drew a picture of ourselves doing that ordinary, everyday activity. However, the students added something interesting into the pictures to make it more exciting. Now, they are working on taking the picture and crafting it into a story beginning. At the same time, we have also talked about how we need to make our first sentence interesting as well, which is always a hard thing for students to do. We talked about how they can use beginnings like “One day . . . “, “It was a warm and bright . . . “, use conversations to start a story or use a book to find a beginning that you can adapt and use in your own story. We have already been getting some very interesting story beginnings. From there, we will work on the middles of stories and endings. I also told the students that I had a crazy idea for putting all those story beginning, middles and endings together into one story but I would tell them later. I will give you a clue though:

20081230-The Great Paper Caper

Speaking of Oliver Jeffers, if you haven’t read any of his children’s books, I highly recommend them. They are lots of fun and the illustrations are beautiful! They have also made one of his books into an animated video, which you can see a preview of right here:

I have placed some new links on the side. You should see a link to the Reading A-Z site where students can read books online and have them read to them as well! I have also put a link to a neat site where students can make regular maps and treasure maps to play with and print out. The last link is to a neat free program where students can make cool mindmaps of anything they want. It is free but annoying pop ups to buy to program come up every once and awhile.

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