Week 19: Learning About Energy


Posted by Savannah Barker on January 29, 2018 at 9:16 PM

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Our week together was filled with energy! The Early Learners worked together to understand electricity, found new ways of measuring sound energy in CERES, and conducted their own wind energy experiments in the classroom. The rest of their energy during the week was directed toward literacy activities, creative designing during Learning Centres time, baking cookies, and dramatizing story scenes. Thursday's Pyjama Day was definitely the most anticipated and energy-filled day of the week, and despite being in their pjs, the girls were definitely not sleepy that day. I hope that you enjoy a glimpse of our week together below.

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K experiments to see which materials she is able to move using her wind energy. She even records the data from her experiment in a simple t-chart to answer the question "what objects move using wind energy?".

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G is playing "Tenzie" this morning. She only needs to roll one more 5 to finish the game.

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P finds a new angle to paint from this morning, and she especially likes painting to music.

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K works hard on a card for Soteira, which reads "From K to Soteira. You're one of the best (teachers)." As teachers, you can never get enough cards with kind messages from your students.

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G builds a ramp out of the "bunkbed parking garage" that she has created. Together, she and I find a way to add a roadway to the base of the ramp for the cars to travel along.

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A tests the loudness of the sound that a pen drawing on paper makes in CERES class. We're all surprised to see that the sound that a pen makes is actually louder (a higher decibel) than the sound of a marker on paper. 

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It is all smiles from P, G, K and M during cooking club this week. That's no surprise either because the girls are baking chocolate chip cookies. 

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Not only are we able to measure the loudness of sounds (in decibels), but we are also able to measure the pitch of sounds. Both K and G try to sing the same E note that Beth created.

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N plays our new literacy game called "Beat the Clock". She is timing how long it takes her to read through all of the letters, both uppercase and lowercase.

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Looking for sight words in our class poems is one of A's favourite literacy centres because she gets to use the magnifying glass. When the words are magnified, A has no problem spotting this week's words. 

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G works diligently on a new literacy centre called "word finder". All of the girls seemed to enjoy this new challenge this afternoon.

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Happy Pyjama Day! Today we all wore pjs because L, in grade 8, was raising both money and awareness for the work that Sick Kids Hospital does around childhood cancer. Many of the girls helped explain to their classmates that Sick Kids is a place where the doctors and nurses are gentle and kind, and that they work hard to keep kids healthy and try to make kids get better quickly. The Early Learners and Grade 1-2s loved spending the entire day in their pyjamas. 

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A enjoys mixing up the red, yellow, and purple paints to create a new colour for her painting. She points out the fireworks that she has painted in the sky.

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We are on an "electricity hunt" around the school this morning, in search of things that we think might have electricity in them. The girls are using wires and plugs as clues as they hunt around for different things. P documents Nancy's computer and phone at her desk, both which have wires running out of them.

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A, K and N pretend to be veterinarians during recess. Both K and A's puppies are sick, and the girls are taking good care of them using the doctor's toolkit that A brought in from home today.

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P attempts to cover the surface of the mirror with pentominoes while at the Math Centre. She finds that as soon as she adds in a new piece, the other ones move around and she has to adjust them all again. Work like this takes patience and perseverance, but she's not ready to give up yet.

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The Early Learners join the Grade 1-2s for a drama class on Friday afternoon. They work in teams to dramatize a scene or two from one of our classroom books. K's group (with G, M, and N) is using Pete the Cat for inspiration.

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The weather on Friday was perfect for spending our outdoor learning block at the park. After a busy week at Linden, A sails into the weekend full speed ahead.