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!
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:
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!
We 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In 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.
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!
