Pixel Art

This week, we took up the Math-Art challenge of creating a design with a hundred grid. It relates to Fractions and Decimals and creates a pixelated art piece. Check out a few examples below!

Clouds

Over the last two weeks, we have explored clouds in Weather. We studied the names of the different clouds and learned how they form. We understand that clouds can predict weather changes. With our eyes on the sky, we documented the clouds we saw this week and wrote weather predictions to match them.

In an effort to understand when and why it rains, we tried a Saturation Station cloud experiment. Using a sponge as a cloud, we added drops of water one-by-one to the sponge. We saw that the sponge could actually hold much more water than most of us predicted. It "rains" when the sponge is so saturated (filled with water) that it can't hold any more, just like a cloud.

We discussed the different factors that led to us having such different results (like sponge size, eye dropper size, etc). Then, we represented our data in a bar graph and a pictograph using a scale of 10.

Independent Research Projects

The Penny

Throughout the month of May, students had the opportunity to learn more about a topic of their choice. Our Independent Research projects spanned from cats to Martin Luther King, and from diseases to Star Wars. The engagement seen in our Online Learning sessions and through the work sent in was exciting.

This project scaffolded and reinforced many learning outcomes in Language Arts and Social Studies. We practiced our note-taking and paraphrasing skills, learned about online searches and safety, explored ways to organize our information, and took down the sources we used. Google Docs ended up being a great tool for searching, organizing, and sharing information. Students created detailed research questions at the start of the project to guide them through their research and were successful in the end. It was truly a pleasure to read and listen to each child's project and presentation.

Cats

Students were asked to represent their learning in a creative way through an artifact. Here are a few examples that were easy to share. This is a project that deserves celebrating!

White Horses

Plague Doctors

Evergreen Trees

COVID-19

Pandas

Sending Love: Senior Picnic Baskets

This year, our class has focused on the themes of citizenship and community, and we've learned how we can better support our vulnerable populations. We had many follow-up tasks from SEED School that allowed us to take action based on what we've learned this year, such as by volunteering at the Drop-In Centre's donation centre, making and donating a quilt to Inn From the Cold, and teaching others about dignity and homelessness through our Animations and Photo Exhibit. Unfortunately, these events and experiences couldn't take place due to the cancellation of classes and COVID-19.

But, there was one activity planned that we were able to still do...we could support the Alexandra Centre Society in making picnic baskets for senior citizens who live in our neighbourhood. The whole school joined in for this optional learning task. Students drew pictures, made puzzles, and wrote inspirational cards so that every basket had a little extra love in it. Thank you to everyone who participated!

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: