Tracking Rain

We are putting on our meteorologist hats and starting our Weather unit in Science! 

Last week, we had to track the forecast and actual rainfall for three days at home. Ms Elder couldn't have chosen a better week because we ended up with a record amount of rainfall on Thursday! 

This learning task was a great discussion-started about the accuracy of scientific experiments. We knew that we couldn't accurately compare our data because there were so many uncontrolled factors. Below are all of the ones we brainstormed. We also discussed why we might get different results even if we controlled for these factors.

The official Weather stats for Calgary documented 33.3 mm of rain for Thursday. That breaks the record from the past 100 years. In 1948, Calgary received 30 mm of rain.  

We also took the opportunity to talk about water safety. Our rivers swell when we get that much rain and there was flooding in parts of the city. Firefighters were warning Calgarians to stay away from the edge of the river, avoid going into pathway underpasses, and not to raft. 

We will be studying clouds next!

Probability Experiments

Last week our Grade 5 students were engaged in work on Probability. As a follow-up to some work we did earlier in the year in class, we created games of chance to assess their probability outcomes. We are working on using language like “certain, likely, unlikely, and impossible.”

Check out some of the games we made:

These spinners show that yellow is "likely" to be spun, green and red are "unlikely" and green and red are "equally likely." Blue is "impossible."

This spinner shows that green and red are "unlikely" and "equally likely" and blue is "very unlikely."

When picking these marbles, light blue would be "very unlikely," yellow and purple are "equally likely," and dark blue is "unlikely." Red is "impossible."

We can also express Probability in fractions. This is something we'll be working on in June.

Building a Vehicle that Moves

Throughout April we have been working on a building project for Science. Our task was to design and build a vehicle that moves from a force such as elastic, wind, spring, or inflated balloon. We could not push it ourselves or use gravity.

The focus of the project was evaluating different designs scientifically, and being able to make changes to improve the distance our vehicles travelled. Measurement was the tie to Math.

Some students made cars. Some even chose to make a boat, a plane, or a hot air balloon! Here are some photos of the different vehicles we made:

Representing the Main Idea

Owen

Sophia

This week, we continued our reading of Current News Articles. The article was about animals taking over cities because there are less people and cars on the roads.

Instead of writing a summary about the main idea, we did something a little different. Students represented the story in an artistic way. They were allowed to choose the medium they used.

This goal of this activity was to continue practicing summarizing information. This is in preparation for our Independent Research Project due at the end of May. It connects with objectives in Language Arts, as well as Social Studies.

Here are some student examples. We have such a creative class!

Jasper

Jaxton

Abigail

D

Virtue Stories

This year, we learned about the 7 Virtues of Moral Intelligence. We each read a storybook and connected it to one of the virtues. (Click here for the assignment details).

Here are the stories we chose and the virtues they connected with, in case you'd like to re-read one you heard. :)

Summary Writing

For the next few weeks, our class will be working on writing summaries. This is in preparation of an Independent Research Project that will be introduced at the end of April.

Key skills we are working on with these summaries include:
- Finding the "main idea"
- Paraphrasing information in our own words
- Making personal connections with the text

Here are the two articles we read and summarized last week, with some student samples attached.

Turkey Chased by Police!

For the original article, click here.

The main message in this article was there's no need to call 911 because of a turkey. It's important because then the police are wasting their time when they could actually be helping other people. This article makes me feel happy and worried. It made me feel happy because it was kinda silly how people would call 911 over a turkey. I felt worried because if Turk does it again but people don't see him he could get lost. ~ Isla

The main message in this article was that too many people were calling 9-1-1 about the turkey. People must call 9-1-1 only in emergencies. This article makes me feel happy because the Turk is in a safe place which is Ramsay. ~ Nikita

Calgary Cheers!

For the original article, click here.

The main message in this article is that people are cheering on their balconies and porches to support frontline workers! It is important because it's nice to support people that help us. This article makes me feel happy because so many people show appreciation for all the frontline workers! It also makes me feel thankful because people are willing to take the risk to protect us! ~ Priya

The main message was that people are banging pots and pans to say thank you to health care workers. This is important because people are notifying the health care workers to say thank for fighting covid 19 and taking in sick patients with covid 19. This article makes me feel happy and good inside because people are supporting the doctors and our doctors are trying their hardest to fight against covid 19. ~ Jaxton

Quilting: How to Stitch your Squares Together

For previous quilting steps, click here.

STEP FOUR: Sew the Squares Together
Using a thread that's the same colour as your fabric, thread your needle.
Choose two squares that you'd like to be side by side. Put them together facing each other so that you're seeing both of the paper squares.
Starting in one corner, poke through the fabric of both squares. Try not to poke through the paper this time.
Use a whipstitch to stitch the two squares together along ONE edge only. If you run out of thread, tie it in a knot a few times, rethread your needle and keep going. When you get the the other corner, tie a knot a few times.
Then open your squares back up to see that you stitched together the edge that you wanted to. I make mistakes all the time and I use my seam ripper to take my stitches out. Ask an adult for help if you do this.
Choose the next two squares to stitch together and follow the instructions again.

Watch the videos to see the steps.

Here is what the finished product should look like: