Venus Flytrap Learning

Today in class we consolidated all of our amazing venus flytrap learning. We recalled all of the wonders we had and some of the answers we came up with. We chatted with friends and worked together to write some interesting facts and unusual information. Students learned a lot of great things about the plant. They had more to share but we ran out of time. If they would like to add more learning or photos for homework on our Padlet, please do!

Created with Padlet

Venus Flytrap Inquiries

In science we continue on our inquiry journey exploring our new favourite plant - the venus flytrap!

Over the past few weeks we've shared many questions and wonders about the plant. We are reading books, talking with friends, watching videos, consulting Twitter and observing our class plants. Each of these helpful resources are guiding our learning and our fun wonders!

Over the past week, students got to solve many of their wonders. We added our wonders to our class wonder wall, and as we answer a popular question, we post the answer as well. This inquiry has been amazing so far. Students are very engaged in their science learning and are using their spare time to learn more information about the plant. Some students are writing plant stories for homework and posting their plant creations on our Wonder Wall. I even hear students talk about how they are researching the plant when they go home - amazing scientists in action in Grade 3!

Today Mr. Gautreau gave our 3 plant friends a friendly shout-out over the announcements. He welcomed the 3 new "students" to Grade 3....Mario, Thornhead and Spike. We had many curious student visitors to our classroom today who wanted to take a peak at our new class friends. Inquiring in Grade 3 is pretty popular!

Forces in Science

In Science our current focus is on forces that cause movement. We are exploring push and pull forces and wondering what causes types of movements to occur. We are listening to songs and researching information about forces. We learned some new forces vocabulary like friction. Students are adding to our Science Wonder Wall and adding Learned information after they discover an answer to their wonders. 

Students have the opportunity to explore their wonders during our centers time! Ask your child about the science vocabulary they are learning about including movement, force and friction.

New Science Unit: Liquids and Solids

We started our new Science unit this week. We are looking at changing states of matter. This week we focused on liquids and solids.

We did a super fun science experiment yesterday called "The Great Ice Race". The task challenged students to determine how to change the solid (ice) into a liquid (water). Students worked in teams to try to melt 2 ice cubes inside of a ziploc bag. The teams were challenged to melt the ice with only their hands. They could not take the ice out of the bag! Students had to work together to come up with a plan and determine different strategies to make that ice melt as fast as they could. Students came up with some creative ways to melt the ice. The fastest team melted their ice in 4 minutes. Way to go everyone! Ask your child all about it!
After the experiment, we talked about what we could do to make the solid (ice) melt faster into a liquid (water). We posted our thinking on Padlet and Twitter.  Here is our Padlet thinking - what did we learn from this science experiment? Have a read to find out. http://padlet.com/wall/liquidsolid

Wondering with Wonderopolis

Our new writing focus in Language is explanation writing. We have been talking about what it means to explain something and what words we can use when we explain. In our literacy centers we are focusing on explaining something we are really good at. We are working on words we can use and a success criteria too. 

We read an explanation writing text about trick candles. Students had many questions and wonders about trick candles. They decided to go on Twitter to post a question for someone to help us with our wonder. Our wonder was: How does a trick candle stop lighting up?

They decided to ask a few classrooms that we tweet to. We also asked a Wonder Website called "Wonderopolis". They replied to us and offered an explanation via their website. Have a read at what they tweeted us!! http://wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-do-we-blow-out-birthday-candles/ 

Tadpole Wonders

At the end of the day today, we started to read a book about tadpoles. In Science, we continue to talk about animals, habitats and cycles of life. We are working to identify the life cycle of a tadpole. Tadpoles become frogs or toads.  During our story we learned that when a tadpole hatches from an egg, they look like a fish. They have a tail and no legs. We started to wonder....how does a tadpole get their feet? 

RC suggested we check on Google to find our answer. We can go to google.ca and search "Tadpoles for kids" and then we will see how tadpoles get legs! This is exactly what we learned about all week long during our digital citizenship lessons! 

Our homework for this weekend will be to find out how tadpoles get their feet! Please bring in your proof on Monday. You can bring in a book, or a printed answer from the internet. 

Can't wait to see the replies!

PS...don't forget to watch our Digital Citizenship iMove: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_20PwcxHZs

We are starting to wonder...

In science we are starting our Animals Unit. We have talked about what is the same about animals. We described what they look like, where they live, what they eat and more. 

Next we created a wonder wall. This wall will help us as we learn more about animals over the next few weeks. The students wrote various wonders about animals. We hope to answer these wonders. We will be writing about and describing animals so we hope to learn new things.