January in Review

All things science:

This month we wrapped up our construction challenges. Students built truss bridges, cantilever bridges, 3D shapes that had multiple types of joints, arch bridges and beam bridges.

On January 10, we visited Telus Spark to kick off our Hearing and Sound science unit. There, students had a chance to explore the galleries and participated in a theatre presentation called Good Vibrations. On the 28th, we were super excited to receive our Hearing and Sound Road Kit from Studio Bell, National Music Centre. Thus far, we have explored how vibrations travel through solids, liquids and gases using music boxes. We also designed testable questions that we found the answers to using decibel meters.

On January 17th, Benjamin Franklin's birthday, we celebrated Kid Inventors' Day. We worked with our Grade 7 buddies to invent, design and build a game. We also worked to advertise our game and participated in a carnival where we got to take turns playing the games others invented.

65 eyed eggs  from the Allison Creek Brood Trout Hatchery Station arrived on January 18th. This week we saw them morph into the next stage of their life cycle- alevin. On the 30th, students participated in a webinar hosted by the Bow Habitat Station, along with students from at least ten other schools. In this webinar we saw where our eggs came from and got to ask a lot of questions about our new rainbow trout and their life cycle.

Students have also been working on:

• Sketching like a scientist - working through multiple drafts of a sketch and asking for and receiving specific feedback
• Writing number sentences to represent problems and strategies (i.e. 35 + x = 67)
• Writing descriptive and instructional paragraphs
• Number lines and timelines 
• Reader's Theatre, and close reading
• Internet research in Social Studies and in reading groups

We are looking forward to the Science Olympics on February 13th and to our visit to Studio Bell on the 20th. Please remember there is no school for students on February 14 and 15 due to Teachers' Convention. Also, there is no school on February 18th as it is Family Day. 

December in Review

December 2018

We had an amazing time at the Calgary Tower on December 5. There, we practiced orienting ourselves north, east, south and west; we identified city landmarks and we learned all about the construction of the tower. We connected the importance of the tower to the concept of citizenship and what it means to be a citizen of Calgary. What makes Calgary a special and unique place to live?

We finished reading the novel, A Long Walk to Water. We reflected on how we are so fortunate to enjoy easy access to clean water, live in a safe community, and have ongoing access to education.

We worked with our Grade 7 buddies on several rock and mineral themed activities. Our favourite activity was our winter solstice activity. Using KitKat bars, wafers, graham crackers, potato chips and assorted chocolate - students modeled the process of  sedimentary rock formation. They had a lot of fun weathering their chocolate/wafer minerals with tools like graters and mallets. They also enjoyed using delicious chocolate and caramel syrups to cement their minerals together before compacting them into a cookie.

Snowmen was another theme of December. Students learned to write paragraphs and use transition words to describe how to build a snowman. They also learned an art technique called pointillism and used it to portray a snowman in the foreground of the northern lights. Additionally, students worked with Scratch Jr. to recreate a scene from the book Snowmen at Night.

Enjoy your break! The first day back is January 7, 2019.

Our next field study will be on January 10, 2019. We are going to Telus Spark to launch our investigation into Hearing and Sound. Please contact our class coordinator if you are interested in volunteering.