Falling Snowflakes in Room 12

Making snowflakes is fun!  In room 12 this week, we made snowflakes.  First, we used pipe cleaners to create the skeleton of the snowflake.  Then, we made a mixture of 15 tablespoons of Borax, 4 cups of water and food colouring.  Once the Borax and food colouring appeared to dissolve in the boiling water, we suspended the snowflake into the mixture.  Then all we had to do was wait.  The next morning we had a  snowflake made out of crystals.  Check out the pictures!

The Borax and water created a suspension.  This happened because the hot water allowed the Borax to stay suspended in the water longer.  As the water cooled, and the Borax began to settle, it crystallized and created these lovely snowflakes.  This experiment helped us to practice Scientific Inquiry in our classroom.

Everyone in Room 12 is a Scientist!

**Don't forget December 4th 4:30-7:00 p.m. and December 5th 9:00-11:30 a.m. is the open house.  Come celebrate your child's achievments with us.  

While your here don't forget to check out our Book Fair in the library, for every two books sold Scholastic will donate one book to our school library.  

Math Centres

This week, we started Math centres in our classroom.  We had four centres running: a shape centre, a money centre, an addition centre, and a time centre.  In the shape centre we played a shape game, where we got to pick shapes out of a box, without looking, and match them to the shape on the board.  This helps us identify a variety of 2-D shapes.  In the money centre, we got to play the game "Pig Out".  In this game you role a dice for pennies that you eventually trade in for dimes or nickels.  This teaches us the value of coins.  Then, we practiced telling time in our time centre, where each of us had the chance to tell time to the hour or half past the hour.  In our addition centre we played a dice game, so we could practice using the doubles plus one strategy.  We enjoyed working in our Math centres.

Room 12's Car Factory

To close our "Position and Motion" unit in Science, we turned our classroom into a car factory. We learnt about how a wheel and axle works, and then tried to build our own.  We all had a lot of great ideas.  We used juice boxes for the body of the car.  For the wheel and axle we used wooden sticks, straws, and water bottle caps.
Our cars are creative.  We made a taxis, race cars, a helicopter car, dump trucks, tanks, delivery cars, a fireworks car, a bus and a cannon car.  Once we finished creating our cars we tested them on an inclined plane to make sure that the wheel and axle worked properly.

Now we are writing a book about our cars to share with parents at the open house in December.  We can hardly wait for the next design project.

Remembrance Day Poppies

This past week we have spent a lot of time discussing the importance of Remembrance Day and what the poppy represents.  We have learnt of the sacrifices that many people have made and still are making to keep our great country safe.  The poppy is a symbol that reminds us of the importance of peace.  At our Remembrance Day ceremony today we spent time remembering those who lost their lives for us.  

For Remembrance Day we used paint and pastels to illustrate what poppies would look like if you were to sit in a field and look out at them.  Our poppies are in perspective because the ones that are the closest are larger than the poppies that are further away.  They remind us that each of us can be peacekeepers.

Halloween!!

We are all soooo excited for Trick or Treating tonight, we have been vibrating with excitement all day.  First thing this morning we tried to burn off some of our energy in a double gym class with our friends from Room 11.  

Then we got to spend two periods in a Dance-a-thon.  We danced our feet off, and some of us even won prizes.  Congratulations to Joaquin for raising the most money in our class.  Thank you to everyone who helped us raise money for classroom and school resources.

Tayanna burning up the dance floor

In the afternoon we had the opportunity to see everyone else's costumes in our Halloween Parade.  To finish off the day we got to spend some time together watching videos and having some treats.  Thank you to everyone that brought treats for our Halloween Party.

Have a happy and safe Halloween everyone!

      

Artist In The School

This week we had an artist come to teach at our school.  She worked with us for three double periods to help us create beautiful works of art.  She taught us about The Group of Seven painter Tom Thomson and his paintings.

We learnt how to hold a paintbrush and mix colours.  We also learnt how to paint a background, mid-ground, and fore-ground using a technique called "patchworking" to create texture.  We used Tom Thomson's art work as inspiration when painting our own canvases.

When we finished our paintings we took time to celebrate our work together.

Our paintings turned out beautifully!

Our paintings were inspired by Tom Thomson's "Round Lake" and "The Jack Pine" paintings.

We also had the opportunity to do a work of art as a class.  This masterpiece was inspired by Tom Thomson's "Autumn Foliage".

Making Patterns With Shapes in Math

This week in Math class we were using shapes to make patterns.  We each made a pattern with three elements in its core and then challenged our neighbour to repeat our pattern.  We used hexagons, triangles, squares, rhombuses, and circles to make our patterns.  When we completed the pattern we had to name the shapes we used.

Patterns are fun and easy, especially when you get to play with shapes.