Jan 30

We are starting to conclude our unit on liquids.  This unit was a big unit with lots of big ideas that we will revisit through the year.  Some of the ideas we have covered are

•  qualities of water vs other liquids
•  viscosity - what materials are more or less viscous and why?
•  materials that are absorbent, materials that repel (are waterproof)
• solids vs liquids
• the water cycle
• ways we use water in our lives
• what happens when our water is polluted

Currently we are studying water that has been contaminated with oil.  At first looking at this, many of us thought that an oil spill wouldn't impact the living things in the water.  However, after testing out our own "pond", we have noticed that the oil impacts EVERYTHING in the water. We noticed that it covered our plants and our animals and after some research, learned that it would affect what animals eat, the amount of sunshine they receive and their overall wellness. 

We tested this by using a feather to dip into the healthy pond and then again into our unhealthy pond. We noticed that the feather repelled the water and was quickly dry again when it was in the healthy pond.  When we did the same in the unhealthy pond, we noticed that the oil did not evaporate or repel. This caused the feather to become heavy and greasy.  We discussed how this could impact a bird by adding weight to it and possibly even preventing the bird from flying.

Currently we are exploring different ways to clean these birds and our pond. We are applying our design thinking skills in order to do this and today we worked in small  teams to come up with ideas.

 Here are a few ideas:

We will test our ideas tomorrow and keep  you posted about our results.

Coming up:

• Book Fair this week
• Student led conferences this Thursday PM and Friday morning (9:00-1:00)

Jan. 18

It's amazing when students apply what they know to a problem.  Today we were investigating what happens when we mix together two liquids.  They remembered from making gingerbread that when two liquids are mixed, they will mix into each other to make a new liquid. Some other examples they thought of was milk into tea or cold water into soup to cool it down.

Today I asked them what would happen when we mixed oil and water.  Many students predicted that it would mix together, it would turn the water light yellow, and a couple students even said it would make the water explode.

When I added the water, they were so confused!!

They used their knowledge from dissolving and suggested that we stir or shake it, so we tried that. But no matter what we did, the oil kept floating to the top.

We learned that the reason that this happens is that the oil is less dense than the water. ("Dense" is a new word that you may want to talk about at home to reinforce).

This encouraged a lot of new questions! (hurrray!!!)  Here are a few:

•  "what would happen if I put the oil in the container first?" 
• are there other liquids that would sink or float?
• is there any way to make them mix?
• what liquids are heavier than water?

We watched a quick video that showed one way to get the two liquids to mix.  Here it is here

We didn't have time at the end of the day to discuss why that worked, but many students were interested so this may be something you investigate at home and bring back.  

Here is another neat experiment that shows the density of a variety of liquids that you could try at home.  It looks quite pretty when you are all done! Liquid Stacking Video

Coming Up:

• Early Dismissal Friday
• Student Led Conferences Feb 2, 3. Sign up for a time here: https://webapps.cbe.ab.ca/myaccount

Dec. 9

As we continue our investigation into liquids, we always seem to end up with more questions than answers. What does molasses move slower than water? Why are some liquids slippery?  Is oil made of water?

Today we compared different liquids by using our senses. We  had to smell, touch, pour, and observe the liquids.  By doing these simple tests on a liquid, we were able to figure out what most of our mystery liquids were.  They were: oil, vanilla, soap, and molasses.  It was so interesting to watch the students so engaged and excited to touch and pour the different liquids.   It was also very funny to see their reactions after smelling molasses. They just couldn't figure out  what it was!

At the end of the lesson we were introduced to the term viscosity.  We learned that the molasses was the most viscous of the liquids that we had due to the larger size of the molecules.  We also learned that we can change the viscosity of a liquid by changing the temperature.  The warmer the liquid, the less viscous.  Of course these are new words and will take some time for the student to master, but we will be using them throughout this unit. 

Lastly,  Parent Council is still looking for a few parents to volunteer as Parent Volunteer Coordinator for our classroom.  If you have received your CBE police clearance and this position would interest you please contact parent council at councils.kennethdtaylor@gmail.com . 

Coming Up:

Gingerbread cookie baking on Wednesday!

Red and Green Day Thursday

Pajama Day next Friday

Next Friday is early dismissal

Winter break starts next Friday!

Dec. 5

As promised, here are the results of our experiment!

If you remember, we made a hypothesis about how many drops we could fit on the surface of a penny. Most of us guessed anywhere 3 - 10.  But... we actually got between 16 and 34!  The students were amazed that so many drops could fit on such a small surface. Below shows a bit of the process of our experiment today:

We started by dropping water drop by drop:

  

As we did this, we took a tally of how many drops we added:

 We kept going until the tension became too much for the water.  We learned that depending how forceful we were could change our end result:

 

When we finished we made some observations and recorded what we learned:

 We have really been focusing on understanding the scientific vocabulary. We will continue to review these words through out the unit to ensure that students have a sold understanding of them.  This is a fun activity to try at home.  You could try with different coins to practice estimating as well :)

Coming up:

• book exchange tomorrow

Dec. 1

We had an great day filled with a variety of different activities. We did everything from email to creative movement.  The best part for many of the kids was making an hypothesis and learning this new word.  The students felt so proud to be able to say this scientific word.   We will be regularly using this vocabulary with our science throughout the year.

We also started to learn about another scientific word: surface tension. We started to guess what this word means and through our experiment on Monday we will have a better understanding it.

We began an experiment to see how many drops of water would fit on a penny.  We made a hypothesis as to the number of drops that could fit and why we thought that many could fit.  On Monday we will  test our hypothesis, draw our observations, and record our results.  We will update you on our results.

How many drops do you think will fit?

Coming Up:
Ken Taylor Market tomorrow from 10-3

Nov. 21

Thank you to all the students who showed such kindness and respect to Mrs. Duncan this morning.  She has repeatedly expressed how responsible, hardworking, and helpful you are when she is there.

Tasting the water

Tasting/feeling the water

Today in Science, we continued to look at water. We used our senses to taste, smell, touch and look at water.  We came up with words such as: slippery, tasteless, shiny, and even transparent! We had the chance to use some eye droppers to look closer at a drop of water.  This was a great way to review safety rules for science such as never smell, taste or touch materials in science unless you are told to.  We discussed how liquids such as water are safe, but they can look like other liquids such as bleach which may not be safe (Don't worry... we won't be using bleach at school!).

How does water flow? Up or down? 

We practiced a visible thinking routine called: See, Think, Wonder.  The purpose of this routine is to encourage students to make careful observations and thoughtful interpretations.  It helps stimulate curiosity and paves the way for natural inquiry.  
Look at some of our responses:

 

Coming up:

• Wear a colour to school on Wednesday that you think would be a good school colour. (We will be talking about this more in class tomorrow )
• Fun Lunch Wednesday
• No school Friday

Nov. 18

Sorry for the late post today!  It has been an action packed day :)

Today we had a busy morning full of reading, writing, sight words and catch-up work. It was fantastic to see all the students working independently on their work and completing what they needed to complete.  It was a very productive morning.

This afternoon we started some inquiry into our science unit on Liquids. We started today by reading a book Water Can Be... 
This started us thinking about the different forms that water can have, where we can find water, and how water can change.  After this, we spent some time asking questions that we have about water that we hope to answer throughout the next few months. Here's what we came up with:

The hope is that as we answer these questions, it leads us to even more!  We ended science today talking about drops of water.  We looked at drops of water on leaves and on Monday, we will get the chance to use some scientific materials such as eye droppers and petri dishes to explore water even more.  We will use a valuable resource of water that is right at our fingertip through this unit: SNOW!  We will keep you updated what we learn as we investigate this resource more...

I hope you all have a great weekend!

Coming up:

• Mrs. Jordan away Monday morning
• Wednesday is Spirit Day - Students will get to wear a colour that they feel should represent Ken Taylor. More info to come..
• Please send back purple CBE permission forms for media ASAP.

Oct. 28

Happy Friday to everyone!  We had such an amazing week of learning this week. I can feel the students are really settled into our class and have an urge to learn more each day.  It's so exciting to feel this energy in the class!

Today we continued working on our Design Thinking Project for Magnets. Today we met in our teams to think about exactly how we would build our device and make a plan for it. In order to do this, we needed to practice good communication, compromise, and active listening.  Some of us took some risks in sharing our ideas and we all worked on "plussing" the ideas of others.

We practiced using the language: First, then, next, and finally to make our plan so we knew exactly how to build it. We also came up with a list of materials. This was very specific and even needed to include if we needed glue!

Next week we will be prototyping our ideas and testing them out.  I can't wait to see these devices come to life!

Coming up:

• Halloween Monday - Bring costumes to change into at lunch. Bring a special snack for the afternoon activities :)
• Mrs. Jordan away Wednesday morning at a Design Thinking Professional Development opportunity with several other teachers from Ken Taylor. 
• Oral sharing will start in two weeks. Watch for a schedule on the blog next week!

What a wonderful day of learning today! The students were so excited about learning more about magnets!  We did a scientific experiment to answer our question: "What is attracted to a magnet?"
Not only did we discover the answer to this, but we started to discover that the magnetic field is strong enough to go through different materials. 
Here are the objects that we tested today. As a family, discuss which of these was attracted to the magnet and why was it attracted or not attracted?  

In math, we continued our investigation on 2D shapes with a focus on shapes in our environment and looking at everyday objects.Today we had two challenges:

1.   Create an object or scene using our pattern blocks. Below are a couple examples. What shapes do you see? Could you have made the same object with different pattern blocks? Why or why not?

 2. Create a picture/object using only squares and circles. I love the creativity with our pictures!  

We will soon be introducing the 3D shapes with a focus on recognizing these shapes all around us and using them to design our own Dream Playgounds for Ken Taylor School. 

Reminders

Early Dismissal tomorrow at 11:30!