Week 7

This week we did a lot of cool things in Social and Science. We are even sometimes getting Social and Science confused which is actually awesome because it means that everything we are learning about it starting to connect to each other.

This week we got to do some research about natural disasters. We got to choose the natural disaster that we were most interested in and we researched using pictures, videos and articles on the computer. We looked up the causes of the natural disasters, where they happen, what happens to the land and if there were any organizations that helped. The natural disasters we are researching are volcanic eruptions, landslides, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornados, wild fires and earthquakes. Ask me what I learned about the natural disaster I am researching!

Science was awesome this week! Mr. Robinson came in and he helped us with a science experiment! We have been learning about the properties of rocks and minerals and we tested whether or not rocks sink or float. We made hypothesis, using the scientific method, about whether or not we thought granite, conglomerate and pumice rocks would float or sink. A lot of us hypothesized that they would all sink. Some of us were in for a big surprise when we saw that pumice floated!! We learned that pumice floats because it is less dense than most other rocks and it has a lot more air bubbles in it than other rocks.

We also tested the properties of other rocks. We stunk up the classroom with vinegar to see if the rocks contained carbonates! Only two of the rocks we tested 'fizzed', it was marble and shale. We also looked at texture which means if the rock felt rough or smooth in our hands, lustre which means if the rock was shiny or dull, we looked at colour and the shape, and we had to figure out if the rocks we were testing were igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic.

We also learned about the two different types of igneous rocks. Intrusive and extrusive. Intrusive igneous rocks are rocks that are formed underground and when the lava cools slowly, like granite. Extrusive are igneous rocks that cool quickly and on the earths surface, like pumice.

In math we continued working on how to understand and read an analog clock. For time we have been learning about how to tell time using analog clocks and digital clocks. Analog is the clock that we use for some watches and the ones you can hang on your walls and digital is like alarm clocks and phones. We are just about done with time and we are going to have some time assessments next week before we move on to skip counting.

  

We are starting to learn about the four countries that we will be comparing to Canada this year. The countries we will be looking at are Ukraine, India, Peru, and Tunisia. We used atlases to find the countries and to map them. Miss Kolb stressed that mappers do not use blue to colour land, this is very important because it would be confusing if water and countries were blue! So when we are mapping we NEVER colour the countries blue!

We unfortunately are going another week without free choice. We had a very good class meeting about how we can continue to get better at working together and respecting this place and each other.

Until next week,

Love,

Room 7 & 8