This past week we were lucky to have some Inuit artifacts from the Royal Alberta Museum in our classroom. We learned about many interesting aspects of Inuit culture, and were able to use a variety of items including an ulu (multipurpose knife), traditional pulling game, kimiik, art, and a soapstone carving. This kit tied in well with our new Matter unit in science as we learn about natural materials, processed materials, and how Indigenous communities use a variety of materials so conscientiously. As the weather is starting to turn colder, it was exciting to learn about how Inuit people adapt so well to the cold climate! You can watch the video below to hear Inuit throat singing. With the arrival of colder weather this month, we’ve started a new unit on Matter in science. We've been exploring natural versus processed materials, different states of matter, and how Indigenous people use materials from the natural environment. In this unit, we will be learning:
Stay tuned for our further learning about matter! Our class had a wonderful first field trip of the year yesterday at the Royal Alberta Museum! We learned lots about glaciers, geology, Indigenous peoples, Alberta's history, Albertan animals, and all sorts bugs. A big thanks goes out to our wonderful volunteers who led groups, and the students did a great job trekking around the large building. Our very expert educator Kevin had a wealth of knowledge, and created some rich learning experiences for the class. When we chatted as a class after the trip, it was neat to see all the different things that stuck out to them during our time at RAM.
Our class has been hard at work researching dinosaurs for the past couple of weeks! Different students have been researching the Edmontosaurus, Albertosaurus, Pterosaurus, Tyrannosaurus rex, Nodosaurus, and Triceratops. Today we celebrated all our learning and excellent research reports by presenting our information to each other. I think everyone learned lots about dinosaurs today, and we have many budding paleontologists in our class!
We've had a blast this week starting our mini-unit on dinosaurs! Students have been learning about different species of dinosaurs and their varied sizes, the time scale of their time on Earth, what the environment was like millions of years ago, and how palaeontologists learn from fossils. Here are some of the concepts we'll be covering over the next few weeks in this unit:
If your child would like to bring a fossil to school and you are alright with them bringing it, we'd love to take a (gentle) look at it in class! As we continue learning about our Earth Systems unit in science, we paid special attention to how wind, water, or ice can move materials, create river runoff, and create landforms such as Alberta's badlands and the Grand Canyon. The students particularly enjoyed making glaciers and observing how they make striations as they moved across our pretend "land" in class. In science this week we took a closer look at natural events that can change the Earth's surface in a short period of time including volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, landslides, tsunamis, and floods. We found out that many of these events are very unlikely to happen near Spruce Grove, but also learned about how communities use research and science to help predict these events and keep them safe if they occur. Our class took a close look at rocks that are formed in some of these events, and they especially enjoyed designing structures that were stable enough to withstand our makeshift earthquake. It's so interesting to see that the Earth can change over millions of years with events like mountain building, or over the course of one short day with events like a volcanic eruption. You can take a look below to check out some of our learning on these events! We’ve been digging deep into our science learning about our planet Earth and how the Earth's surface changes ver time! We’ve worked on classifying and sorting minerals, tapping into our geological background knowledge, and we were be tasked with the very important mission of helping geologist Jess Geo. Jess is asking us to help sort some minerals that got jumbled up in transit, and we were able to help her out in identifying 12 minerals today! In our unit on Earth's this term, we’ll be learning lots of important concepts about the Earth's surface, including:
Students are welcome to bring interesting fossils or minerals from home to share with the class during our science class. They've already been sharing a wealth of background information about dinosaurs and volcanoes, and we can't wait to learn more! This week we went to explore all the animals and plants at the John Janzen Nature Centre! We took a look at a local pond, explored animals in the pond with nets, and identified local species of critters and plants! We got to peer at a pond creatures life cycle from beginning to end and discovered the web of life of a pond ecosystem.
In the afternoon, we investigated habitats around the Nature Centre for tracks and traces that animals left behind. We also honed our hiding skills and practiced stalking prey with some games! It was a rainy but fun day to explore the river valley, and we learned so much about animal life cycles. We were so lucky today to have Evan's mom come and teach us all about their apiary and the bees that they take care of! We learned about the bee life cycle, the different roles that bees play, and how a hive functions. Evan's family has a website here where you can see all the amazing things that can be made from a bee hive, and the students really enjoyed answering some trivia at the end to win some excellent prizes. Thanks so much to Evan and his mom for teaching us so much about this important species!
The students successfully completed the research and writing for their non-fiction animal books this week! They typed up all their findings in a variety of subtopics, and published their illustrated books to Seesaw! To celebrate we had a well-deserved book publishing party and got to share our reports with each other. It's always satisfying to see our hard work in writing pay off!
Our mantises have been growing well this month with a steady diet of crickets, and even the odd meal worm here and there! We have three that we're taking care of in our classroom, and we've grown quite fond of them. They've gone through several incomplete metamorphoses where they shed their skin and grow larger, and it's always impressive to see how big they get over a matter of days! We finished off an amazing week at the Winspear Centre with some math, architecture, construction, and an organ demonstration! This morning we planned a pretend budget for a visit to the Winspear including tickets and concession which made for some great math conversations! Mr. Wiley gave us a very special tour of the Winspear's construction site, and then the students created blueprints for their very own planned Winspear addition! Perhaps the unanimous highlight of the day was an organ demonstration. We learned all about the incredible 6,551 pipes on the Davis Pipe organ, how it was constructed, how it works, and we got to hear "Ode to Joy" on the organ. At the end of the day we created a time capsule of our Sound School memories that we'll open when we're in grade four. It's been an incredible week, and it's definitely left an indelible mark on the students!
We were all over downtown Edmonton today as part of Sound School! We started off the day exploring different instruments from different orchestra instrument families, and students even got to play the violin and accordion. We saw a graduation taking place in the Concert Hall today, and also had a tour of the incredible Stanley Milner Library from librarian Jasper. We learned all about the art of Alex Janvier and his very special art at Rogers Place, and then we performed a choral reading about his art when we visited the actual mosaic piece at Rogers Place. Of course we had to visit the Wayne Gretzky statue while we were at Rogers Place as well!
We had a day full of learning and fun for our first day of Sound School! We learned a new song, explored the Concert Hall, enjoyed Churchill Square, heard all about Dr. Francis Winspear and his legacy, examined the fossils and building materials in the lobby, worked on some Concert Hall estimation and multiplication, and evaluated different seats at the Winspear (the very tippy top Gallery was perhaps the most popular spot). Miss Stephanie took great care of us as we learned, and we can't wait for Day 2!
The big highlight four our class this week was getting to visit the Royal Alberta Museum! We learned lots about Indigenous peoples, Alberta's history, Albertan animals, rocks & minerals, fossils, vehicles, and bugs. A big thanks goes out to our wonderful volunteers who led groups, and the students did a great job trekking around the large building. We wrote journals this afternoon summarizing what we'd learned, and it was neat to see all the different things that stuck out to them during our trip.
We've had a delightful month with the chicks, and they officially made the trip back to their farm today! We got to meet Mrs. Hardy who taught us a lot about the chicken life cycle and how the chicks will live on the farm. The class was very sad to see them go because we've grown accustomed to their silly antics, musical chirping, and cuddly-soft feathers. We learned so much about their life cycles, and the students were devoted caretakers to these newborns. The students of 3B were wonderful chick parents!
This week the students drew invertebrate animals that they then painted with watercolour and tempera paints. We had learned about iridescent insects and used that learning to paint our invertebrates with bright, eye-catching colours. You can even watch below to see some art made by invertebrate animals and check out some more science-inspired art here, here, and here
This week we've been learning more about the chicken life cycle! We got to candle a couple of the eggs, and we learned all about the different parts of the egg that allow the chick to develop inside. Each student "dissected" their own egg in class to find the albumen, air pocket, embryo, chalaza, yolk, and membrane. It was egg-cellent fun |
Mrs. BarkerMrs. Barker is a grade three teacher at Millgrove School. She loves science and reading, and lives in a little brick house with Mr. Barker and her kids Jack and Ellie. Archive
April 2024
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