Last week, we had some great fun putting together some models of Mars Landers. We were talking about how scientists use models to help study things that are way too big to study up close. For examples, planets are too huge and far away to study up close, so we use models to help learn about how they work. Afterwards we made some Mars Landers as models and launched them from up in the High School lobby. It was great fun. You can see the pictures below.
I have also included a copy of the model. If you want to make another one, just print out a copy and make your own. I would suggest you print it on heavy paper so that it is not as floppy. elem_lander
I found some really cool videos about skyscrapers today that I thought I would share with you. The first video shows a skyscraper being built in two days. It’s amazing. The next video shows the history of buildings and skyscrapers from ancient times to now. Finally, the last videos show the construction of a skyscraper in Spain. Some neat stuff! See if you can see any of the ideas we have talked about in our unit. Think about how these buildings have been made to be safe and stable.
Well. Another Pumpkin Day is here and gone. It always seems to come up so quickly and then pass just as quickly. The kids had a great morning of Math and Science fun!
The students did a lot of work in a very short amount of time. Much to there surprise, students were not just carving pumpkins any ol’ way they wanted too. Pumpkins are amazing plants and we took a lot of time practicing our observation skills and learning how God’s creations are all wondrously and perfectly made.
We started off with looking at the outside of the pumpkin asking the big question: Does the weight and circumference of the pumpkin have any relation to the number of seeds inside?
Students weighed and measured, then got to go inside the pumpkin to look at how the seeds were arranged. Counting the seeds was the next challenge as students worked hard to find the fastest way to count seeds. Once all that information was recorded, students went up to the smartboard and entered their data into a special Google Docs spreadsheet where a graph of their results was automatically created. It was really cool. Finally, students planned and carved polygons into their pumpkins as a pattern as they learned that polygons were shapes consisting of more than one connected straight line.
The students had a lot of fun. I have placed the spreadsheet of our results below. You will probably have to scroll through it.
Today was an amazing day for the Hancock Building Inc. company. After doing the experiment about cylindrical pillars, we saw how they are used in the real world.
Venice is a city entirely built on cylindrical pillars which were driven into the mud. Some are from the year 7 A.D when the city was initially created on a series of low shallow islands in a lagoon of the coast of Italy. These pillars were gradually built on and added to to create the city that is now Venice! Isn’t that amazing! An entire city built on pillars of wood! Today the city is slowly sinking as the pillars sink into the mud and the tides carry silt and the sea floor away. But the pillars themselves are still strong and have survived because of the strength of the shape of the pillars. In the pictures below you can see some examples of the wood pillars with the brink built on top of it.
It is an amazing and beautiful city. Here is another image of the city showing the whole thing from ground up.
Here are a couple of videos that we watched showing Venice and how it works.
In our endless question for building perfection, the class continued our study of our Big Question:
How do we construct a building that is safe and sturdy?
We were studying what shape of pillar would hold the most mass. Our choices were the cylindrical pillar, the triangular pillar and the rectangular pillar. Having done our hypothesis and made sure that the experiment was a fair test, we stacked dictionaries on top of the pillars until they collapsed. You can see the results below!
AS you heard in the video, the cylindrical pillar will hold the most weight because it has no corners. The weight of the books is distributed evenly throughout the pillar allowing it to hold more weight than the other shapes.
Great fun. Tomorrow we will investigate how this relates to real life and see how one of the great cities in the world, Venice, uses cylindrical pillars to hold up an entire city!
Recently, we have been looking at the properties of Oobleck. 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. You had some wonderful properties you discovered as you worked with the Oobleck.
I also had told you that Scientists themselves did not understand why Oobleck had such strange properties but they are working very hard to find out more just like we are!!!! However, the big announcement was that Oobleck was actually a combination of cornstarch, water and green food colouring. You can actually make your own.
1. Mix two parts cornstarch with 1 part water. Get your parents to help you with the measurements. You may have to add more of each to get it perfect. You need to have more cornstarch than water though.
2. Add a couple of drops of food colouring.
3. Play and have fun.
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?
Yesterday was a blast! Literally! To end off our look at Oobleck we took alook at Mars. Now you may be asking what does Mars have to do with Oobleck? Well, that would be a good question!! We talked about Mars because the scientists who created the Mars Rover had to go through the same process to create the Mars Rover that the students did to create their Oobleck Machines.
In the first part of our Oobleck unit, the students had to think about Oobleck, play with it, explore, discover, experiment, test, observe and use their senses. Scientists had to do the same thing. They had no idea what Mars was like and yet had to use what they had (pictures, etc) to come up with a machine that could withstand anything that might happen.
The scientists held a convention to share their ideas, discuss, argue, put ideas together and listen to each other. The students had to do the same thing to create their rules for Oobleck. Finally, both the scientists and students had to use all their observations and ideas to create and design a machine they thought would be able to function on Mars or Oobleck. We had an amazing time discussing and sharing ideas and pictures.
I also showed the students an awesome video showing the Mars Rover leaving Earth and landing on Mars and all the things the Mars Rover had to do in order to land safely and function properly on Mars once it got there. Here is the video:
Hot on the heals of our Social Studies test, the students will be having a Science test on Wednesday, June 1st. I have embedded a study guide below for you and your child to look through and practice with.
Here we are at Monday with only four weeks (approx.) to go. Time is flying so quickly.
In Science, we have been working a lot on learning about the properties of light. We are getting close to end of this part of our unit and will be looking at the properties of sound next. In the next few days will be wrapping up is part of the unit and doing a little review before the mid-unit test. I will have the study guide on the blog before the test to help the students.
There are a lot of great videos and resources for students on light and their properties. Of course, Bill Nye always has some great videos which I have embedded below. I have also put a little quiz for fun. Can you answer all the questions correctly? Be careful, I’m checking your answers! 🙂
Finally, here is our favorite video! (Well, favorite for now. We seem to change fairly frequently!)
So I was sitting on the coach taking a breather from a long day of working and thought to myself, “I need to get more fun stuff on the blog!” So here goes:
Just a reminder that tomorrow is our one year anniversary of Canada winning the gold at the Olympic Men’s Hockey tournament. It was such an exciting day. Remember to wear your Canada, Olympic or hockey gear tomorrow. Here is the magical memory from our friends at Youtube!
So, if you are feeling in the Olympic spirit and want to get into some physical activity but don’t happen to have an Olympic speed skating track in your basement, here is an easy to make ping pong game. Just get a couple of juice containers like in the picture and a wooden stick. Cut some holes through the juice containers (maybe get your parents to help. You don’t want to get an Olympic size injury!) and insert the wooden sticks through the holes. Voila! There is your ping pong game. Now, all you need is some paddles and a ping pong ball. If anyone wants to make one for the class and bring it in to show us, that would be fantastic!
Our dining room table gets used a lot and not just for dining. We eat at our dining room table nightly but after the dishes get cleared, let the ping pong games begin! We turned our dining room table into a ping pong table. You can do it, too, by following these easy steps.
Ping Pong Table: DIY Project Materials Needed
2 plastic containers (one for either side of the “net”) that holes can be poked into (I suggest Odwalla juice). Must have lids.
Pennies, marbles, sand or rocks to weight the plastic containers.
Wood dowel to make a “net” to reach across your table.
Screw driver or scissors to poke hole in plastic container.
2 ping pong paddles and balls.
First, empty, clean, and dry plastic containers.
Fill bottoms of each container with your material of choice. I used pennies. Put on lid. Consider gluing lids on if you have little ones around.
Cut holes with scissors, screw driver or other tool.
Push wood dowel through holes.
Finally, here is a little learning fun for you. Not related to anything in our science this year, but learning is still fun no matter what it is or where it comes from. And who says we have to learn just what we have been told to learn. So here is a neat video showing the distance our Moon actually is from us.
Did you catch it? There was some stuff about light which is what we are studying now! If you missed it, watch it again. First person to tell me that it takes light one second to get to Moon, gets a prize!
Enjoy and we’ll see you tomorrow!
Spelling and Memory Verse with a Slight Chance of a Tornado
It’s Monday and it’s already an exciting week here at the blog! We have started a Mystery Unit and already there has been a mysterious event in the class!
During recess today, someone came into the room and carried off our beloved AT-AT walker. They left behind a ransom note stating that if we wanted to see it back in one piece, we had to solve the clues. The first clue will apparently appear tonight on the blog! Very exciting!
