We're asking LOTS of questions in Science lately about our Human Body (5) + Biodiversity (6) cross-curricular inquiries. Students are wondering about the coolest things... Grade 5s want to know things like:
Grade 6s are curious about:
Take a peek at your child's question below... From this jumping off point, students formulated both open and closed ended questions to guide them along their inquiries and research information. Using an application through their Google Drive called Mindomo, students are organizing their questions, sources, and research collaboratively. So what are we going to do with all this information? Well.. we've got BIG plans. Mrs. Jorgensen, in English class, is working alongside us building Science knowledge through literacy centres AND is guiding students through another piece of this project. Each inquiry must include a "call to action".... an invitation for the public to DO SOMETHING about the problems (health / environmental) students find during the inquiry process. This is going to to turn into a giant art installment right outside the KHPS office. We can't wait for you to see it!
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I looooooooove Science.... and these just so happen to be two incredible units! Grade 5s will learn about the Human Body and the interrelations between systems. Grade 6s are starting to learn about Biodiversity and the connectedness of life on Earth. The coolest part? Mrs. Jorgensen and I have planned a HUGE (and super fun!) interrelations and connections whole-class inquiry between the Grade 5s and Grade 6s that will connect their Science learning with French (oral and written), English (oral and written), and Visual Arts. Stay tuned for information on this (or ask your child!!). First, let's talk about Science centres. We've done one rotation of these before, back in the fall, when the 5s were learning about Energy and the 6s were learning about Electricity. These are an amazing way to build the knowledge, skills, and ideas of a unit before going into inquiry mode and expanding on these ideas.
GRADE 5 CENTRES: (If you're a Grade 6 Parent, keep scrolling!) Centre 1: mini-inquiry on a topic of student choice, and how it relates to the health of the systems of the body. They might choose from a list of topics related to smoking, sun, Type 2 Diabetes, cardiac diseases, allergic response, and more! Centre 2: as mentioned above, students get to read with me. At this particular centre, we learn about the Respiratory System. Centre 3: students match up organs and their definitions. They learn about the function of each. This will also be reviewed with Mrs. Jorgensen!
GRADE 6 CENTRES:
Centre 2: Students read with me about Biodiversity, and then read independently a non-fiction article about bees. We discuss reading strategies: learning unknown words, non-fiction text features, inferencing, and more! Centre 3: Students learn about animal taxonomy and order animals by their traits. Centre 4: Students work through a mystery about an animal that couldn't be classified, and learn more about classification. Centre 5: Students take a peek at videos and games about biodiversity and different types of plants and animals. Centre 6: Students explore why we don't need to clean ponds, but do need to clean aquariums by playing a game. They get to see why all animals and plants are important to an ecosystem. Centre 7: Students create an artistic museum display of an ecosystem of their choice. They share their knowledge on biodiversity between species, within species, and within an ecosystem. Centre 8: Students learn about invasive species, and create a Pixton comic to tell the story of an Ontario invader. We were lucky enough to have Mme Kareena Butler, an educator within our OCDSB community and our Indigenous Education Instructional Coach visit us on Tuesday. She worked with our classes to build further understanding of issues in First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities as well as our comprehension of residential schools and reconciliation. One of the powerful learning activities we did with her on Tuesday (Grade 6s) and with me on Wednesday (Grade 5s) helped us build our understanding around community and identity, and what it means when this is taken away. To begin, we formed a circle. This became our community. We discussed:
Our circle was outlined with a string - we became connected and joined together by the ideas above. Check it out below... In each class, we had eight volunteers that represented the following important parts of a community:
Things were looking pretty good in our little community! Everyone was working together, sharing their culture through stories, languages and learning from each other. Unfortunately, from our learning on First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities in the past in Canada, we've learned that this was not the case. These voices and identities were silenced, through many different ways: residential schools, judgement from others, stereotyping, segregation, and more. These parts of community were cut out (we literally cut the string to represent this), voices were silenced, and people were left on their own. The sense of community was lost. Students noted:
We began to invite our missing members back, through a process we call reconciliation. This is a big word that means first of all recognizing what happened in our Canadian past and taking action to prevent further separation in our future. We invite peoples of First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities (Knowledge Keepers) to share their stories and experiences, languages, and culture. In doing this, we begin to repair ties. In doing this, students noted:
Looking for more at home? Take a peek at this video below full of ideas and questions to continue the discussion! Grade 5s are in the beginning stages of their first Social Studies + French inquiry. We're learning all about the inquiry process and how this can help us become better critical thinkers, question askers, and learners. Our whole class will be working on a guided inquiry (modelled by me) on Canadian Residential Schools and reconciliation. During this inquiry, they will learn the skills and tools they need to embark on a successful inquiry on their own. Through our reading of the wordless graphic novel Secret Path by Gord Downie and illustrated by Jeff Lemire, students have generated many questions about what they would like to know about residential schools in Canada. In order to be able to better respond to these questions, students are learning about how we can get information from different sources. We came up with a list of all the many incredible sources we have access to in the world. Students are getting to sample different sources related to residential schools. We've been discussing the pros and cons to each type of source. So far, we've looked at: video sources and infographics. We read a picture book this morning called Les mots volés, which will be our next source that we look at. What's next for the 5s?
They will be divided up into different inquiry groups to look into one of four different topics. Check out the topics below! Discuss with your child what they are most interested in. Grade 6s continue their learning in Social Studies about human rights - they reviewed what they learned last year about what they feel are essential rights of a child, and built on that by learning about the United Nations, different non-governmental organizations, and what Canada and Canadians are doing to defend these human rights. We built our understanding of the United Nations by comparing it to what our families do at home when we need to make a decision or when we're in an argument. We learn to collaborate, discuss, form agreements, vote and more to make decisions. You can see this anchor chart below.
Students are using this information to piece together ideas about how Canadians can make a difference in the human rights of others. They're learning about...
Soon, you will start learning about your child's #WorldChangers project. Mrs. Jorgensen and I will be tweeting lots about these projects, so you can check them out as they develop. Our first of #WorldChangers tweets was sent out this morning... check it out here!
Yesterday, we imagined that we were speaking to the founders of the four organizations above. We wondered what advice they might give us about our own projects. Check out our ideas below! We wrapped up our Science units on Energy Conservation (Grade 5) and Electricity (Grade 6) and are now moving on to exploring Social Studies. So many neat lines of inquiry to follow! Grade 5s will be learning all about Canadian Government and Citizenship and 6s will be learning about Canada and the Global Community. We kicked off these units with a super cool visit with the Mayor of Ottawa, Jim Watson right in our own classroom! He shared with us his experience of municipal government and how he and his team help people in our Ottawa community. Check out the photo below of our class with Mayor Watson and click this link to see his tweet about his visit to Kanata Highlands. Grade 5 parents, read about the upcoming below. Grade 6 parents, scroll a little further... and then you'll see what your children will be learning! So what are the Grade 5s going to be learning? Here are their BIG unit questions (you can see them posted in the classroom on the right):
We started our unit by looking at four different issues that are happening in Canadian Indigenous communities where the rights of children and adults are not being respected.
While we are learning about these four different issues happening in Canada, we are also learning about different types of government we have here. You can review this video below about three of the different types of government we have in Canada. Warning... the song is SUPER CATCHY!! Seriously. You'll be singing it all night. And what are the Grade 6s going to be learning?
You can see their questions posted in the classroom on the right. We kicked off our unit by looking back at human rights that we saw in Grade 5. We are relating this to learning about refugees - what it means to seek refuge, why some people need to, and what we can do to help. Students are working through four centres, using different artifacts to support their learning:
You might like to watch Missy Higgins' music video (from our first centre) for her song Oh Canada, which summarizes part of Alan Kurdi's story, as well as her perspective on what Canada could have done differently. I'm looking forward to continuing this learning with the 5s and 6s!
All of our time in our Science exploration centres (see last post) has led us to get to apply our knowledge in a hands on way! If you're a Grade 6 parent, you can skip to below! Grade 5 - Rube Goldberg Machines Grade 5s are making Rube Goldberg machines... these are super complicated chain reaction machines designed to perform a really simple task. Humour and story-telling are integrated into the machine as it runs through a series of steps to, for example, close a door, dribble a basketball, hold and umbrella, turn on a light... and so much more!
Grade 5s are in groups building their own machines out of recycled and found materials in the school. They are applying their knowledge on:
Click through the gallery below to see some of their plans and projects! The best part about these projects is seeing the students TRY! It's the very best way to put their knowledge to the test. Check out these attempts below!
Grade 6 - Electric Creations Grade 6s have been challenged with an open ended project. Their goal was to transform electrical energy into some other form (linking in their Grade 5 knowledge that they would have learned last year in the unit that the Grade 5s are working on above). So... what have they made so far? The most amazing things!
These four groups below have coded video games on Scratch and used Makey-Makey invention kits to create circuits to control their games using humans as buttons.
This group is creating an optical illusion circuit that illustrates how a pumpkin grows. They've used Makey-Makey and Scratch to code and record the different parts of the pumpkin life cycle. They've illustrated the pumpkin stages on paper which turns on motors so that we can see the life cycle in action! Below, these girls tell the story of a tadpole changing to a frog with the help of Makey-Makey circuits and Scratch! This group's Art Bot wiggles and creates art with the help of a circuit! There are still a few projects yet to be finished that aren't posted here.
We've been doing LOTS of learning in our exploration Science centres. You can see these in your child's Google Classroom account! These centres give hands-on practice on the skills and knowledge that we're building throughout our units on Energy Conservation (Grade 5) and Electricity (Grade 6) so that we can move into an inquiry and building project about our topics. Grade 5 Energy Conservation centres allowed students to:
Grade 6 Electricity centres allowed students to:
You can watch one of the Ozobot circuits below. The Ozobot acts an electron going through a battery and different resistances within this parallel circuit. So what's happening next? We're BUILDING!! Stay tuned for project plans on Twitter and on the blog... Grade 5s will be building a Rube Goldberg machine. Grade 5 Google Classroom post #026 outlines this group project. Grade 6s have an open-ended challenge: plan, test, and build an electric device that works using a circuit that transforms electrical energy into another form (e.x.: sound, kinetic, light, etc.).
I'm just as excited as you are to see what these groups of kids come up with! Grade 5s began their learning about Energy Conservation and the 6s about Electricity. If you're a Grade 6 parent, just scroll through! The Grade 6 information is below the Grade 5. GRADE 5: We began our week with an awesome exploration outside of all the different forms of energy we're learning about. You might like to go over these energy vocabulary cards with your kids at home. Students are learning to recognize forms of energy in their communities. Feel free to continue exploration at home by discussing what forms of energy you see, hear, and feel around your house. We're discussing energy conservation, and learning about energy transformations. Today, we're reading a First Nations legend, called "Manabozho et les érables", with a moral of caring for the environment and not taking what we have for granted. When we begin our eight Science centres next week (these will be posted in Google Classroom on Monday), students will be exploring energy in various ways: an inquiry, matching cards, an Ozobot challenge, reading, using a wattmetre to test energy in the school, and MUCH more. This will all prepare them for their big Rube Goldberg building project to come after our centres. If you don't know who Rube Goldberg was, I suggest you check him out! He's the ultimate chain reaction machine master. We watched this music video of a "Rube Goldberg" style machine by a band called OkGo (who often infuses their music videos with Science). GRADE 6: In grade 6, we're learning all about electricity. On day one, before digging into any electricity, we got together and baked bread in a really old fashioned way... we spent time measuring, mixing (forever), kneading the bread, watching it rise, kneading it again, watching it rise, and finally rolling it into buns for baking. We are learning how electricity makes our lives so much easier. Next, we switched back to high-tech! Students got to explore parallel and series circuits with our fabulous electricity kit. They got to use: batteries, alligator clips, motors, fans, lightbulbs, and switches. You might like to review this vocabulary at home with your child. Check out some of the circuit creation below!
Students took apart our clocks (the entire upstairs hall was without a clock for a few hours... woops!!) and rewired them, adding switches, lights and fans. You can review series and parallel circuits at home with the images below. This will help your child when we begin our Science centres next week. After that.... who knows what is next! ;) We will be building SOMETHING electric!
Ever heard of an Ozobot? How about an Ozobot roller coaster? Ozobots are programmable little robots that can either be coded online, or by using coloured markers. They have little sensors underneath their base that read red, green, blue, and black coloured lines in specific sequences. This week, we're harnessing the power of these little robots for our team-building challenge before we kick off our Science units mid-September. Students have been challenge to create the next great roller coaster, one where the guests of the theme park will ride in an Ozobot up and down the twists and turns of their roller coaster. Check out what the students (a.k.a. roller coaster engineers) have been working on so far here.. Beginning with a plan - sketching, writing, discussing, collaborating Running some preliminary Ozocode tests
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Mme SamuelThis page is written by Mme Samuel. Our class switches back and forth between learning about Science and Social Studies. Click here to see a tentative timeline of our different units. Categories |