June 5th, 2015.

It is hard to believe that we are already into the month of June!  We had a fantastic start to the week with "Bike to School Day".  Our class had a large number of students participate.  We used the day as an opportunity to talk about bike safety and care.  We then spent our Physical Education class practicing bike skills such as going around cones and other obstacles.  In connection with our Science study of simple machines, we looked at the parts of the bike and how a bike works.  The students then created fantastic paintings of bikes that helped to decorate the gym for our volunteer tea.

The students began crafting their descriptive paragraphs on an Alberta animal of their choosing.  The students used the information they gained while researching their animal to write about one part of the animals life, such as; a spider catching its prey, a bear cub emerging from its den for the first time, or a mountain goat climbing up a high mountain peak.

In Math, the students began working on a larger project where they were given the scenario that they have $200.00 to spend on books and materials from Scholastic.  When ordering the students will utilize all the different math operations as they meet a number of criteria such as ordering multiple copies.

Our Science unit has been a lot of fun as the students worked collaboratively to create a balloon powered vehicle that could travel. It was interesting to watch the brainstorming and design process and to see how the groups tested and altered their creations. 

One of the balloon-powered vehicles

We had a fantastic time during our in class field trip, "Catapult: Building Devices and Vehicles that Move".  The students learned all about levers and pulleys as they experimented with three weapons from Medieval times; the mangonel, the trebuchet and the ballista.  We also had great fun working to build our own catapults.  

The owls that the students created out of clay and then glazed have been fired and are on display in the classroom.  They are absolutely beautiful!  A big thank you to our talented parent who led this project and took care of the firing.