Sorry for the delay in posts. The subscription for the blog needed to be renewed and there was a delay in doing that!

We had a great day today. The weather was beautiful and the hike was amazing. The kids did so well today! It was a tough climb but the kids persevered and did so well! We had a nice break next to the lake and made it back to school on time! Here are some pics:

We are truckin’ along in our class work. We are performing our Reader’s Theatre pieces on Friday to cap off our unit on Reading Fluency. They should be a lot of fun to see. In Math, we have started our unit on patterns after finishing our introduction to math. We’re hoping that the lessons we have learned about perseverance, resiliency and growing as learners through challenges will help us in the coming year for Math. We have a lot to cover in Math this year, so please expect your child to have homework in this area. While I don’t typically like to give homework, there is so much math to cover that we will quickly fall behind if we don’t push through our units.

Science has us designing Oobleck machines. What is Oobleck you ask? Great question! Oobleck is a mixture of water and cornstarch that demonstrates several strange properties. Adding some green food colouring for fun, we learned that oobleck is liquidy when held in the hand carefully, but turns hard and crumbly when squeezed or handled roughly.

Through our look at Oobleck, students have been practising what it means to be a scientist. They have been exploring the scientific process, experimenting, asking big questions and being creative. We started the process with experimenting on how to make paper airplanes go further. We had a great time experimenting with it and studying it’s properties. Do you remember what properties are? We can find the properties of objects around us by using our 5 senses; what we see, feel, hear, smell and taste. So,

Properties are the things or words we use to describe different objects so we can tell them apart.

We played with and investigated the properties of Oobleck to help us understand what made Oobleck different from other substances like water or play-do. The students had some wonderful properties they discovered as they worked with the Oobleck. It got very busy. We then held a scientific convention to decide upon some “rules” about Oobleck and come up with a set of laws that were true about Oobleck. We are now in the design phase of the process where students are designing a space ship that could travel to and explore a planet of Oobleck using the properties of Oobleck as a design guide. Love the creative ideas!

Oobleck, of course, is a real substance. It’s very distinctive property of being both a solid and a liquid has made Scientists curious for a long time. When left alone, Oobleck will act like a liquid. However, when squeezed, hit or pushed on, it will suddenly act like a solid, cracking and breaking under pressure. Scientists still do not know why it does this .

If you have lots of time and lots of Oobleck, you could do this:

Here is a video showing what Oobleck does when you put it on top of a very loud speaker!!! What do you notice? Would water do this is you did the same thing? Why don’t you try it and find out?

In Bible, we are reviewing the books of the Old and New Testament and looking at how they are organized into different themes.

Just some notes of things:

• Terry Fox day is tomorrow for our class. It’s an important way to celebrate the achievements and the ongoing impact of a great Canadian hero. We will be going outside and doing laps around the field to help remember this incredible person. If you are able to donate a toonie towards cancer research, we would be grateful. There is no obligation however.
• The school has asked us to remind everyone about the pick-up and drop-off procedures:
  • Please ensure that you always follow the procedures for parking lot safety while using the Highroad Academy parking lot.
    1. Follow direction of flow as indicated by the arrows and signage.
    2. Park ONLY in designated parking areas. Do not park in ‘No Parking’ zones including the Drop Off lane on the west side of the building.
    3. Pull into a parking stall when dropping off and picking up students rather than stopping in the driving lane. Do not stop next to the pylons to drop off or pick up your students.
    4. Do not drive alongside the overhang of the main school entrance, north side of the building.
    5. Do not enter through the Chilliwack Central Entrance next to the playing field. This is a Fire Lane, and the parking area is not available for HRA use.
    6. Always be alert for children who may dart out between cars.