Scientific Inquiries

Yesterday, we decided to create an habitat for our Artic animals.  During recess, the children collected snow and blocks of ice to put in our Active World table.  Preston found a piece of ice too big to use in our habitat.  We decided to put the block of ice in the water table and estimate how many days it would take for the ice to melt. To our surprise, the block of ice had turned into water by the morning. We talked about what will happen to the Artic animals, especially the bear, if the Artic ice continues to melt. 

We put the block of ice in the water table.

The children are writing down their estimation.



We estimated how many days it would take for the ice to melt.

Alessa brought a small piece of ice this morning.  She estimated that it would take 4 days for her ice to melt and Giuliana thought that it would take one day. The ice had melted by the afternoon.

James has been observing a popcorn kenel since Monday.  He wants to find out if the kenel will break in water.

Drama

The children have begun learning about the elements of drama with Mrs. Belaire.  They are learning to vary tone of voice in drama and naming feelings that are expressed in facial expressions of characters in books. The children prepared masks to dramatize the story of "The Three Little Pigs".  You can now view their dramatic performance in their ePorfolio.

During our story time, the children listened to the story "The Three Little Fish and the Big Bad Shark." Then, we discussed the similarities and differences between this story and the original story of "The Three little Pigs".

Comparison of 2 similar stories
The Three Little Pigs	The Three Little Fish
Characters: 3 little pigs and a wolf	Characters: 3 little fish and a shark
Setting: Forest	Setting: Ocean
Problem: The wolf wants to eat the pigs.	Problem: The shark wants to eat the fish.
The wolf tries to blow down the houses.	The shark tries to crunch on the houses
The pigs say: “Not by the hair of my chiny, chin, chin!”	The fish say: “Not by the skin of my finny, fin, fin!”
End: The wolf falls in the soup and burns its tail.	End: The shark loses its teeth and could only eat sea weed

The children were asked to put sequence cards of the story "The Three Little Pigs" in order. We are presently making videos of the children retelling the story. Continue to check your child`s ePorfolio to see and discuss with your child what he or she is learning at school.

Dance Performances

This week the children had to use problem-solving skills and their imagination to create a dance. The children were asked to start and finish their dance performance with a "pause," and they were encouraged to perform movements together and to repeat them in different directions (ex. left and right).  They could choose to sing a song to go with their dance.  The children practised their dance all week.  Friday was the day they performed in front of their peers.  In the morning, each group made a poster to advertise their dance group. They wrote the name of their group, the day and time of their performance, and the name of the dancers.  All poster had to be attractive to "catch" the attention of the public.  Here are their posters:

Monster: Colin, Devin, Antonio, Ben, and Preston

Tea Cups: Folu, Ella, Alessa, and Giuliana G.

The Butterflies: Tianna, Christina, Ava, and Giuliana M.

Lightning: James, Anthony, Jackson, Brandon, Mahmoud and Aiden

Penguin: Kaitlyn, Hannah, Joanna-Lee, and Nahisha

In the afternoon, the children had a great time performing their dances.  You can view your child dance performance in his or her ePorfolio. The children also got to present their poster to Mrs.Cole. Those videos will be in your child's ePortfolio this week.

Water Exploration

The last few days, we have had many discussions about waterways, lakes, oceans and ponds.  We used a map to identify countries and oceans the Wild Kratts have explored and countries that some of our friends have visited.  In our study of the natural world, we compared a pond and a lake. During our discussions, we talked about animals that live in salted and fresh water and others that live in cold and warm water.  The children also had the opportunity to explore the buoyancy of a bar of of soap in fresh and salted water.

Est-ce que le savon flotte?

The children were encouraged to use tally marks to record their answers.

The children observed some table salt using a magnifying glass and made the following observations after being asked what it looks like or  what does it make you think when you look at the salt:

Kaitlyn: Snow

Giuliana G.: Grass

Joanna-Lee: Circles

Folu: A circle.

Christina: I can see a triangle.

Ben: I can see circles.

Alessa: A big circle.

Fouad: circle

Ella: Sugar (Why?) because it is white like sugar.

Hannah: It makes me think of sugar.

Nahisha: Shape like circles.

Colin: Sugar because it is white.

Sean: It looks like yellow crumbs.

Devin: Looks the same. Salt does not make you slip.

Alessio: A diamond.

Mahmoud: A circle.

Giuliana M.: Looks a little bit powder.

Tianna: Looks like a big circle.

Brandon: It has circles.

Jackson: circles

Preston: A circl.e

James: Looks like circle.

Here is the salt after the water evaporated.

 Then we added some hot water. The children observed that the salt "melted," that "it looks like water" and "it looks like a cloud". We told the children that we would let the water evaporate and that we would continue to observe. After all the evaporation of water, some children made the following observations:

Alessa: The water is all dried up. It's dried up because it's salty.

Arman: So salty and dried up.

Christina: It looks like all the way down to the bottom. It's dry. I think you have to put more water. Is it going to stick a lot of times?

Ella: It looks like frozen salt.

Devin: It looks really dry, no water, just salt on the sides. Something looks weird. It looks like dry water, dry salt.

Ben: It looks like a cricle. The water came out except the salt. It looks like a semi-circle.

James: It is really tiny. I think there's no more (water).

Tigers and Zebras (Tianna)

In gym yesterday, we played a game created by Tianna.  Here is the conversation we had explaning the game:

Mme Maklin: What is the name of your game?


Tianna: The name of my game is about Tigers and Zebras.


Mme Maklin: How do we play your game?



Tianna: We need some people  in corners, 4 in each.  Only 

3 people can be it. Zebras are in 3 corners and tigers are in 4 corners. Girls are zebras and boys are tigers.                                                                                          

Mme Maklin: When the zebras and tigers get touched, what do they have to do?

 

Tianna: They have to jump over hula hoops.

 

Mme Maklin: How many times?

 

Tianna: 10 times. When the tigers and zebras get tired, they lay down. When you touch them they wake up.

 

Mme Makin: When does the game end?

 

Tianna.: The game ends when the teacher tell us.

 

We played Tianna's game today in the gym.  She divided the tigers and the zebras by sending the girls in 2 corners and the boys in the other 2.  The children followed the instructions very well.



Goodbye and Welcome!

 

Recently we had to say goodbye to two friends and other living things. Adam moved to Autralia, Chili went to heaven, Rachel (our pumpkin) and another of our classroom plants died. The children had the opportunity to draw something that represented their best memory with Adam and Chili. We talked about new beginning by welcoming a new friend Ella to our classroom and by planting new seeds so life can begin again.

 

 

 

Candy Cane Experiment

Just before the Christmas Holidays, we did an experiment with candy canes. We wanted to know what would happen if we put a candy cane in hot water and cold water.

 

Here are some of the chidren`s predictions (and connections) on what will happen if we put a candy cane in hot water:

 

Ben: It`s gonna broke.

 

Devin: It`s going to shrink because in the cold water there isn`t enough pressure to make it shrink but in hot water there is.

 

Giuliana G.: The candy cane is stickier than the gingerbread man.

 

This observation from Giuliana directed us toward another question "Why is it sticky?"

 

Adam: Junk! Fruitloops that`s definitively junk.

 

Giuliana M.: There is a lot of sugar.

 

 

Here are some predictions on what will happen if we put a candy cane in cold water:

Adam: It`s gonna stay cold.

Devin: It`s gonna stay the same.

 

 

 

Then we put one candy cane in hot water and one in cold water. We also decide to put one candy with its wrapper in each of the cups. The children predicted that the wrapper would protect the candy canes. Here are the observations made by the children:

Hot Water:

 

Anthony: The colours are melting.

 

Kaitlyn: It`s turning white.

 

Alessa: (After touching the candy cane) This one is cold.

 

Kaitlyn: (Looking at the dye in the wrapper in the bottom) It's red at the bottom.

 

Anthony: The hot one is more red (the water).

 

Colin: They both turned into red and I see white sugar in there.

 

 

 

Cold Water

 

Sean: It`s melting.

 

Alessa: (Touching the one in cold water) This one is cold.

 

Tianna: This one is broken a little.

 

Kaitlyn: This one has two lines (stripes) at the bottom.

 

Anthony: This one has a little red. This one is going to break.

 

Nahisha: (touching the candy cane) It's wet.

 

Colin: The one with "c" is cold.

 

 

At  the end of our experiment, we concluded that a candy cane in hot water melts faster than in cold water and plastic protects the candy canes like our skin protects us.