January 26th

Did You Know…? Houdini bought Edgar Allen Poe’s writing desk.

Good afternoon,

Today we began with our multiplication review quiz for this week. This week students had been working on their 1x and 2x tables. After our quiz, we began to learn our new fact family for the week – the 7x tables! Students watched one of the Multiplication Toons available through Mathletics. This encourages us to sing along and to practice counting up by 7’s. Next, the Gr. 5 students moved to the Division 2 Learning Lounge to continue practicing multiplication with Mr. Dykstra. The Gr. 4 students and I continued to practice our 7’s by playing the Spiral Game in small groups. Remember, if you want to try the Spiral Game at home, you can find the instructions through the “Multiplication Review” page in the side links.

In Science today, the Gr. 5 students began to explore the difference between open and closed circuits. To do this we added some materials to their bin today. Today students were able to use battery holders and light bulb holders. With these there to help us, we can begin to build larger and larger circuits! The students today first constructed a closed circuit with two wires, a light bulb, and a battery. Next they had to find as many ways as they could to open the circuit. How do you know when the circuit is closed? The light bulb will light up because the electrons are able to freely flow from the negative terminal of the battery to the positive terminally of the battery. How do you know when the circuit is open? Electricity is not flowing when the circuit is open. This is because the negative terminal is not connected to the positive terminal with conductive materials. As a result, the light bulb will not light up.

The Gr. 4 students made a pop-can roller today. We used a pop can, paperclips, cardboard, a bead, and an elastic to make a roller that would roll without us having to push or move it. The elastic was the key to making this happen. A twisted elastic is filled with potential energy… it wants to unwind to it’s original form. So… when we let go the elastic is filled with kinetic energy and quickly unwinds. It took us a little while to assemble all of our rollers today and even longer to work out some of the kinks, but now that they are working, we will be using them on and off again throughout the unit to help us to continue to study wheels and levers.

We also had our first Booktalk today! Thank you so much to everyone who practiced and prepared your Booktalk at home. They were wonderful! I am definitely interested in learning more about your books and authors after your presentations. Stay tuned for what we will be working on next in reading!

Agenda:

Read 20 minutes

Language Arts: