Ms Berna came to visit our class this week to help us work on and develop our team work skills. We learned that some teams have a leader and some teams don’t - each person has an equally important role with no single person leading. We played two different games to reinforce these concepts.
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This week we went deeper into our inquiry about gas by blowing bubbles after reading a book about how bubbles are formed and why they are always round. We also made soda water by using a soda stream to dissolve carbon dioxide gas in water. We made observations to see the changes in the soda water throughout the day. We had so many questions about gas, so we ask Dr Jeremiah if we could visit the science lab and sent her our questions. The high school students set up some demonstrations which show how to test for oxygen, carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Our favourite was the hydrogen test which made a pop sound!
We went on a states of matter hunt all around the school. We found plenty of solids a few liquids, but not many gases. This made us more curious about gases. We wrote to Dr. Jeremiah a HS science teacher and she invited us to the science lab to meet the DP chemistry students to find out more about gases. We asked them questions about gases. When asked what we could put inside a balloon we came up with many different ideas. We tried lots of them out...water, air, beans, pompoms and rocks. After each one we decided if the change to the balloon was reversible or irreversible. It was reversible as the things could be taken out again...until the balloon popped! Then water couldn’t be put back in and the balloon could no longer hold air! We also wanted to know what would happen if we put water balloons in the freezer so tried that too. We explored ice cubes by feeling them melt, observing them closely through magnifying glasses and writing and drawing about the changes we saw. We discussed the changed and decided it was reversible as when the solid ice had melted we could put the water back into the trays to re-freeze it again.
Imran made a 3D shape memory game for us to play together. We learned the names of some new and tricky 3D shapes by playing this game and had a lot of fun at the same time. Ian brought in a cube shaped toy car that moves and reacts to hand movements. Ian and Michael enjoyed trying to make it move in different directions around the carpet. Naomi made a game for the class to play. When you landed on a 3D shape you had to name it and build it using magnatiles.
We explored 3D shapes by counting their sides, faces and vertices. We looked for similarities and differences between the shapes.
After our tuning in to states of matter we did some research using library books and Epic! to come up with a definition for solids, liquids and gases. Then we created a class poster to summarise our findings. After that we had a go at sorting the items we had explored last week into solid and liquid using a Venn diagram. It was trickier than we first thought as some things we thought might be both and some things such as sand act like a liquid, but there are tiny solids. We developed our thinking skills through discussions about where each item might go as we justified our choices. To explore the states and properties of matter we made some playdough in class. We discussed the states of matter of each ingredient and the concept of change as when they were all mixed together they made a flexible and malleable solid called playdough. We used the playdough to make models of 3D shapes that we have been learning about in Maths. This helped us to understand the concept connection and the line of inquiry ‘matter can be manipulated for everyday uses’. To go further with the concept of form we collected a large selection of different examples of solids from around the classroom. Then we discussed how to sort them. Very quickly we came up with the idea of materials and sorted them into wood, paper, metal, fabric, glass and plastic. But then we realised the many objects were made of two or even three different materials. So we had to make some sub categories and new labels.
Our new unit is 'How the World Works' with the central idea 'properties of matter change'. We had lots of questions about these words...what is matter? what does properties mean? how does matter change? Over the next 5 weeks we will explore, research and discover some answers to these questions. To begin with be explore lots of different substances such as sand, slime, beans, honey, jelly, cotton wool, toothpicks and cornflour. We described the properties of these and again noted down questions we had about these things.
This week we have been exploring symmetry. We started by folding different 2D shapes in half to find out how many lines of symmetry they had. Next we made a symmetrical display of classroom objects on our carpet. We helped each other out making suggestions when we didn't think an item one of our peers had put down was an exact example of symmetry. This helped us look closely at colour, shape and text on items. We enjoyed making some symmetrical butterfly paintings and completing symmetrical drawings.
This week we took part in several Deepavali activities throughout the week. On Monday we added our classes contribution to the Primary School loose parts rangoli pattern and made lanterns to decorate the hallway. On Wednesday Ms Shradha presented to us how she celebrates Deepavali. We made rangoli patterns on paper plates with coloured shapes and more rangoli patterns by sprinkling coloured salt onto glue. We painted clay diva lamps which were then used for our parade on Friday. We also enjoyed getting our hands decorated with henna.
This week we extended our shape work by using them to make patterns. We came up with a definition for the word pattern ‘it repeats again and again’. Then we explored what patterns we could make with different colours of shapes. We made many types and shared our ideas with each other. They were ABAB, ABCABC, ABCDABCA, ABBABB and AABAAB.
For our number work this week we extended our knowledge of the composition of numbers from two digit numbers to three digit numbers which have hundreds, tens and ones. We practiced making three digit numbers with the base ten materials, writing them and saying them. |
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May 2021
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