Increasing Stability

Yesterday during Theme Studies we examined how well objects remain standing.  We began by trying to balance our pencils on our tables.  Some people were successful and some weren't.  After discussing why this might be, we then began examining just how stable even the standing ones were.  Even though some pencils could stand up, none of them were very stable.  We then looked at two different sized paper tubes, a shorter one and a longer one.  Students were asked to decide which tube they thought was more stable.  Almost everyone chose the shorter tube.  Even though they both would tip over easily, the shorter tube took more strength to do so.  

Today we reexamined our tall paper tubes.  Our goal was to do something to them so that they would be more stable.  Students were given supplies to use and were provided with the rule that they could add to the tube, but they could not take away from it.  They were then left to explore how they could make the tube more stable.

Each pair was successful. however some were more successful than others. 

We came up with a list of the strategies that we used, and discovered that most of them were similar.  Most pairs either made some sort of foundation for their tube, or increased the weight or size of the bottom of the tube.  Both two good ways to increase stability.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Today was a busy and special day.  All day long we celebrated the holiday with special activities.  This morning the whole school took part in the Halloween Tabloid.  All around the school there were different stations that we travelled to as a class.  We visited the gym for a Halloween game with witches, wizards, and zombies.  We went to the library to play ghostbusters.  There was dancing in the music room, a snack and Spot It, Pictionary, a story, and and eyeball toss.  It took us most of the morning to go to each station and we all had a lot of fun.

Playing the game in the gym!

Dancing in the music room.

Spot it and Snack time!

Playing Pictionary.

This afternoon the Halloween fun continued.  We had our costume parade in the gym, then after recess we had our class party.  We had many families contribute generously towards our snacks so there was plenty of food to go around.  We finished up with a bit of choice time and some Halloween themed Just Dance.  

It was a great day.

Thank you once again to all the families who provided snacks for our party!  Rom 20 wishes you all a fun and safe Halloween!

More Halloween Fun

Today was the students who are apart of the Winnipeg Jets Hockey Academy's first practice.  That mean that about half our class were gone for two periods this afternoon.  This is a weekly occurrence, and one that we get used to, but since today was the first time, we did a special art project.  Using white crayons and watercolours, we painted a spider web with a multicolour background.

To begin we drew our web with white crayon.  This was a little tricky as it was challenging to see on the white paper.  We then used our brush to wet our paper.  To paint our background we used a painting technique called wet on wet.  This is where both the watercolour paint and the paper are wet.  It makes the paint colours run together and creates a neat effect.  Because we were using watercolour paper, it was a little tricky to get our paper wet enough as the paper was very absorbent.  After a few tries though, everyone had the right idea.  We had to leave them to dry and unfortunately could not add our last step, drawing the spider on with Sharpie.  That will have to wait for another day.

Here are a few of the almost finished paintings.  We still need to add in our spiders.

Next on our agenda was our Halloween stations.  Students could move around the room and go to any station they wanted.  Students could choose from two different math games, a l'halloween matching station, a problem solving station, and a Halloween fun book station.