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 We’ve been very engaged in our Animal Life Cycles unit in Science recently! In this unit, students will describe the appearances and life cycles of some common animals, and identify their adaptations to different environments. We've focused especially this week on animal classification and observing our chicks, mantids, fruit flies, and caterpillars. It's been a busy and fun week! During our learning on Animal Life Cycles, students will:
Today we had a very exciting assembly from the Earth Rangers! We got to see an barred owl, armadillo, and monitor lizard up close which was thrilling. The Earth Rangers also shared lots of information about how we can better take care of our planet which connected well with Earth Day coming up next week!
As part of our upcoming unit on animal life cycles, our class received a delivery of a mantis ootheca (eggs) that will hopefully hatch sometime in the coming months! We needed to transplant the ootheca to a humid environment, and we have some flightless fruit flies ready for the hatchlings to snack on once they emerge. The class has been dutifully checking on the ootheca everyday since it arrived! You can watch the video below to see a mantis laying an ootheca of eggs. We learned lots and had lots of fun today at Telus World of Science! We got to watch a special presentation in the IMAX theatre, and we participated in the Make a Sound program led by our science expert Derek which tied into our class' unit on Hearing and Sound. Derek helped us review concepts on volume, pitch, vibration, and protecting our ears. We also were able to explore all of the exhibits in the facility (the current feature on blue whales was quite popular) thanks to our four wonderful volunteers! In our recent work on our Hearing and Sound unit, we’ve been learning about how instruments make sounds with striking, plucking, or blowing, and the students made their own instruments in class (we’ll do more extensive instrument building later in the unit). We explored instruments from around the world, and then experimented to find out how sound is transmitted through gases, liquids, and solids. Next week we get to learn about how our human ears sense sound! We’re starting a new Science unit this month on Hearing and Sound! In this unit students will explore the nature of sound, its sources, its qualities and what it is. They will learn that sound is vibration and that changes in vibration can affect the loudness, pitch and quality of sound. We will talk about sound travel by studying what things carry sound, what things make it louder or softer, and what happens to sound when it reaches their ears. The sensitivity of human ears and those of other animals will be examined, as students learn about the safe use of this valuable sense. In the coming weeks, students will learn to:
To finish off our unit on Building, we had a very special in-school field trip building four types of bridges: a Roman arch bridge, beam bridge, suspension bridge, and truss bridge. The students got to learn very hands-on what steps and skills go into building bridges, and were impressed with how strong their structures were! You can see the video below where "Galloping Gertie" (or the Tacoma Narrows Bridge) collapsed because of a design issue (fortunately with no injuries to anyone). Our bridges definitely were more sturdy and well-engineered. A big thanks to the wonderful volunteers who helped us! We capped off our bridge-building project this week! The students finished joining their beams, decks, and trusses, and we tested them in our bridge competition. There were three stages to the competition:
It’s been an exciting week in 3B as we started the culminating project of our building unit: building bridges! We’ve learned about different types of bridges and explored the design and construction of the Walterdale Bridge in Edmonton. The students are working on a challenge from the City of Edmonton to build a model bridge for a self-driving vehicle, using only glue and 150 popsicle sticks. So far they’ve constructed the beams and deck of their bridges, and next week we’ll be doing some railing and truss work. We have our very own model self-driving vehicle that the bridge will need to support, and a model of the river bank of the North Saskatchewan River. There will definitely be some great contenders for the Edmonton Self-Driving Vehicle Bridge! Our amaryllis plants have continued to rocket up in their growth! Because we learn about life cycles in grade three, we're continuing to observe our plants as some bloom and some are just forming foliage. Our plants "Eloise," "Dawn," "Jack," and "Nicky" have grown exponentially in the past month, and many flowers have bloomed this week. Our latest measurement of "Jack" had the plant pegged at a height of 65 cm which means it has grown 59 centimetres since we planted it! You can watch the video below to see a time-lapse of another amaryllis growing. 3B has been hard at work this week building model playgrounds! One of the outcomes for this unit is that students will use a variety of materials and techniques to design, construct, and test structures that are intended to serve as models of particular living things, objects, or buildings. Students had to carefully consider materials, aesthetics, and function as they built, and the result was many creative and fun playgrounds! You can take a look below at some of the playgrounds that were built in our class. The students were excited to start our new Science unit on building this week! In this unit, students will use a variety of tools and simple techniques to build things for specific purposes. Their tasks will include building a bridge to span a gap, a model playground, and a stool to hold a person. Through these projects, students will learn the value of safety and good workmanship and that different materials and designs can be used to obtain the same result. We will talk about how working together on a common task is easier when ideas and materials are shared collaboratively. We’ve already had fun planning and building vases to hold a bouquet of flowers and a gift box to hold a chocolate, and the students are eagerly planning their model playgrounds for next week! This week we were very lucky to meet (virtually) with a grade three class from Athabasca Delta School in Fort Chipewyan! We taught them a bunch about what we've been learning in our unit on Testing Materials and Designs, and they taught us a bunch about their very neat fly-in community and the winter road that opened today! It was really special to connect with them, and we're excited to visit with them in the coming months!
This week in Coding School the class was thrilled to code with Adafruit's Circuit Playground Express! We created code for a Christmas light display, created an instrument that we could play Jingle Bells with, and created some music and light sequences. This interesting device sure made for a fun week! This week in Coding School we've been working hard on creating our own video games! Each student created their very own Capture and Evade game, and then we started on making a Platformer game. The class was very impressive with their computational thinking, and we made plenty of use of our skills in algorithms, decomposition, pattern recognition, generalization, and abstraction. You can play your child's video game by using the link they posted on Seesaw!
In grade three, we are learning about measuring height in centimetres (and millimetres, decimetres, and metres) and we also learn about life cycles. To get started on these learning outcomes, this week we got some amaryllis plants in our classroom. We will be tracking the growth of these plants over time and observing changes as their life cycles progress. The students especially enjoyed naming their plants, and we are curious to see how the plants grow in the weeks ahead!
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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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