After our mapping exploration, we look a long bus ride to...Laser Quest! We took part in their “Quest for Knowledge: STEM Program on Light and Sound” to discover how light and sound interact with various objects at Laser Quest and what materials are used to transmit, reflect, and absorb light and sound. We had a blast playing two fun-filled missions of Laser Quest!
On our second last day of school, we went nearby to Todmorden Mills Heritage Site to participate in their newly launched program on Indigenous peoples. We looked at various maps of Canada from different time periods and by different groups of people (i.e., Indigenous peoples, European settlers) and concluded that it is important to consider perspective when looking at a map. Students then created a map of Todmorden Mills, which were then compared to reinforce the point that maps of the same area can look different, depending on the focus and perspective. As we were a pilot group for this module, we had an opportunity to vote on the experience.
After our mapping exploration, we look a long bus ride to...Laser Quest! We took part in their “Quest for Knowledge: STEM Program on Light and Sound” to discover how light and sound interact with various objects at Laser Quest and what materials are used to transmit, reflect, and absorb light and sound. We had a blast playing two fun-filled missions of Laser Quest! Mrs. Jakymyc returned for our third and final art workshop this year. As part of our current Social Studies unit on Interactions of Indigenous Peoples and Europeans, we looked at the paintings of Norval Morrisseau, an Indigenous Canadian artist from the Bingwi Anishinaabek First Nation, who created works depicting the cultural and political tensions between First Nations and European traditions. Using the medium of acrylic paint, students created their own Norval Morrisseau-inspired painting by first stencilling an image on canvas and then drawing geometric shapes within the image before painting it. Black marker was used to outline the finished product.
After several months, Mrs. Jakymyc from ArtQuest came back to our classroom for a two-part workshop on Canadian artists. Today, we focused on the paintings of Ted Harrison whose landscapes of the Yukon, one of the “Political and Physical Regions of Canada” (from a previous Social Studies unit), evoke the stark, dramatic beauty of the tundra landscape in vibrant colours and simple, bold forms. Students created a Ted Harrison-inspired landscape using plasticine with a mod podge finish.
Scientist Nini showed us how to design stable structures to withstand a variety of forces. In the first activity, students built structures of different configurations and tested their stability with an earthquake simulator. Next, students identified different ways to keep a tall, narrow structure from toppling over. As a fun side activity, students used popsicle sticks and pipe cleaners to create an object that could balance on one point. Before the last activity, the amount of weight a beam bridge could hold was tested. The final challenge involved building an open frame structure out of narrow cylinders of newspaper that could hold as many math textbooks as possible. Our class record was 10 textbooks! (The all-time record for Scientist Nini was 14 books.) May the Force Be with You(r Structure)!Scientist Natalie worked with the Grade 5s in my class and Ms. LaFreniere's class to explore the states of matter: solids, liquids, and gasses. In the first experiment, students observed what occurred when water was added to different substances and determined what state of matter is hair gel. For the second experiment, the behaviour of different liquids at room temperature was studied. Chemical reactions of different substances were explored in the third experiment. In the final experiment, the physical properties of different substances were recorded.
In the meantime, the Grade 4s practiced the 3 Rs by removing all the tape from our plastic bridge experiment so that the straws could be reused for future design challenges. |
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