This week, students will be writing an explanation text about an energy source of their own choosing. This represents a culminating assignment that builds upon other activities from this unit including: working with a partner to research and present information about various energy sources, doing experiments in groups and as a class to inquire into various energy sources, identifying features of information texts, and learning about the explanation genre of writing.
To help students move towards independently writing an explanation text, as a class using Google Docs we collaborated to create an explanation text on kinetic and potential energy. Each group took responsibility for simultaneously planning, drafting, and revising one section of this text. Groups then peer edited each other's work on the document. Teachers, meanwhile, commented on various paragraphs alongside what the student groups were drafting, revising, and editing.
Below you will find this document. Keep checking it, as in the next day or two, you may see important features of information texts, such as a glossary, bibliography, or diagram added.
Also, please leave comments!
What would you like to know about how students created this document? What would you like to know about the explanation genre?
Questions will be answered by student bloggers!
Classroom
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Grade 5 Barge Trip Information Meeting for Grade 5 Parents, Thursday, October 30, 6 PM in Ms. Alison's Room
Dear Grade 5 Parents,
It is time to start planning for the Grade 5 barge trip. You are invited to an information evening to find out all about the Grade 5 Barge Trip, and ask any questions you may have before deciding whether or not to send your child.
Below is a brief outline:
Grade 5 Barge Trip
Where: Chao Phraya River, Thailand
When: 27 - 30 January 2015
Run by: Experienced teachers from the http://barge.threegeneration.org/
Who is going: Grade 5 students, three Grade 4/5 teachers
Why: to practice independence being away from home, to learn how to co-operate in a team when undertaking the different barge duties, to inquire into and learn about the natural river environment with hands on investigations, to visit and learn about Ayutthaya, Thailand's ancient kingdom, to have fun!
Please would you bring your child's passport so we can copy the relevant pages. (It makes it much easier, and safer, than asking for the passport to be sent to school another time).
We look forward to seeing you on Thursday 30 October at 6 pm in Ms. Alison's room.
Kind regards,
Grade 4/5 Team
It is time to start planning for the Grade 5 barge trip. You are invited to an information evening to find out all about the Grade 5 Barge Trip, and ask any questions you may have before deciding whether or not to send your child.
Below is a brief outline:
Grade 5 Barge Trip
Where: Chao Phraya River, Thailand
When: 27 - 30 January 2015
Run by: Experienced teachers from the http://barge.threegeneration.org/
Who is going: Grade 5 students, three Grade 4/5 teachers
Why: to practice independence being away from home, to learn how to co-operate in a team when undertaking the different barge duties, to inquire into and learn about the natural river environment with hands on investigations, to visit and learn about Ayutthaya, Thailand's ancient kingdom, to have fun!
Please would you bring your child's passport so we can copy the relevant pages. (It makes it much easier, and safer, than asking for the passport to be sent to school another time).
We look forward to seeing you on Thursday 30 October at 6 pm in Ms. Alison's room.
Kind regards,
Grade 4/5 Team
Friday, October 24, 2014
Please remember to keep checking our Class Photos!
Our class publishes new photos onto Picassa at least once a week!
Please remember to look at these photos with your child and ask him/her about what was going on in the photos!
This week, we've got pictures of students giving speeches about why they would be good candidates for the Elementary Student Representative Group, performing experiments about potential and kinetic energy, and working together to create a written explanation joint construction (an explanation piece about kinetic and potential energy that students have written as a group rather than individually).
If you enjoy these photos, please comment underneath the post!
Also, have you ever had trouble accessing this slideshow? Please let me know in a comment!
Please remember to look at these photos with your child and ask him/her about what was going on in the photos!
This week, we've got pictures of students giving speeches about why they would be good candidates for the Elementary Student Representative Group, performing experiments about potential and kinetic energy, and working together to create a written explanation joint construction (an explanation piece about kinetic and potential energy that students have written as a group rather than individually).
If you enjoy these photos, please comment underneath the post!
Also, have you ever had trouble accessing this slideshow? Please let me know in a comment!
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Monday, October 20, 2014
Students on Fire While Inquiring Into Renewable Energy Sources!
Today the Grade 4/5 students in room 37 rotated around five centers in which they explored and found out about various aspects of renewable energy sources such as: wind power, hydroelectric power, solar power, muscle power (kinetic energy), and fuel cells.
Students were challenged to connect easy energy transfer systems (which for the most part changed a renewable energy source such as water current into a usable energy source such as electricity) and describe them in terms of our key concepts of form, function, and connection.
In groups and using iPads as recording devices, students observed and described the different components of these systems, hypothesised about how the systems worked to generate electricity, and made inferences about how environmental placement of such systems could affect the amount of power they generate, all on shared Google Docs from our Google Classroom site.
In the excitement, however, their absent-minded-scientist-of-a-teacher forgot to take many pictures. Hopefully, students will make up for this shortfall with their own images they took to document their explorations. Enjoy the fortunate few photographs below and don't forget to always check our class photos by clicking on the "Photos" label in the cloud to the right of this post.
Students were challenged to connect easy energy transfer systems (which for the most part changed a renewable energy source such as water current into a usable energy source such as electricity) and describe them in terms of our key concepts of form, function, and connection.
In groups and using iPads as recording devices, students observed and described the different components of these systems, hypothesised about how the systems worked to generate electricity, and made inferences about how environmental placement of such systems could affect the amount of power they generate, all on shared Google Docs from our Google Classroom site.
In the excitement, however, their absent-minded-scientist-of-a-teacher forgot to take many pictures. Hopefully, students will make up for this shortfall with their own images they took to document their explorations. Enjoy the fortunate few photographs below and don't forget to always check our class photos by clicking on the "Photos" label in the cloud to the right of this post.
| How to use the labels from the labels cloud... |
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
What is going on in Room 37 this week? (And call for ENERGY EXPERTS!!!)
As we come through the ISA test this week, we are settling back into some more normative class routines in Room 37!
In math, Grade 4s and 5s will be continuing their investigations into place value and base ten by comparing and ordering numbers this week. Grade 4s will be ordering numbers up into the millions and billions, while Grade 5s will be ordering decimal numbers going down into the thousandths!
Please keep in mind that although students have Mathletics homework this week related to these lessons, I will not assign this homework until we have a chance to go through a lesson on it. Up until I assign students Mathletics work based on these lessons, they can do Live Math on Mathletics, or work on Front Row, using our class code of 3t4jt5 to log in.
In terms of our Unit of Inquiry, we are unpacking our How Things Work unit on Energy.
The central idea for this unit is "Energy exists in different forms and is used in our everyday life."
The lines of inquiry for this unit are:
Different forms of energy (form)
The ways we use energy (function)
The impact of energy on our world (causation)
Environmental effects of energy choices (responsibility)
Yesterday, students rewrote our transdisciplinary theme of How the World Works in their own words as a group, while today students drew pictures illustrating their understanding of the central idea and the lines of inquiry with partners.
As we zoom into this unit, we are looking very much for experts in any field related to energy, or the affects of energy use on the environment. Please send me an email if you are at all interested in coming to speak to our Grade 4/5 inquirers. We would love to have you come in!
Thursday, October 2, 2014
Important Reminders...ISA and School Photographs Next Week
Please remember that next week Grade 4/5 students will take the International School Assessment (ISA) on Monday, October 6 and Tuesday, October 7.
While students do not need to study for this assessment, it is very important that they eat properly and get a good night's sleep on Sunday and Monday.
Absent students on either of these days will take a makeup assessment on a subsequent day.
Also next week, the school photographer will be on campus to take both individual and class photographs. Each day’s shooting begins directly after roll call. Homeroom teachers and teaching assistants will accompany students and be on hand to ensure hair and clothing is neat and tidy. These photographs will be used for the ISPP Yearbook and also to update our school database.
The schedule is as follows:
Tuesday, 7 October: Early Years students individual photographs
Wednesday, 8 October Elementary School students individual photographs
Thursday, 9 October All class photographs
If your child is absent from school on the day of the individual photographs, we will let you know the date of the make-up session and make every effort to ensure that your child has his/her individual photograph taken on that day. However, it will not be possible to re-shoot the class photograph.
Please contact the Elementary Office (Ms. Kaltrina or Ms. Chantha) if you have any further questions about your child’s school photographs next week.
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