X- Country and Publishing Party

As promised last week, here is a compilation video from our Sports Day on May 17th!

 This was an eventful week as we had the annual Cross Country Run event for the upper primary student on Wednesday, and then a personal narrative book Publishing Party on Friday. 

The students have also been busy preparing for their Student-Led Conferences which will be held next week from Wednesday to Friday. 

Thanks to all of the parents who came out to support our little athletes as they competed at the 1000m X- Country run. The students faced off on some rough terrain and an even bigger challenge of being misdirected at one point! As a result there were some tears at the end, but once all of the details of the race were discovered and discussed we decided that rather than penalize anyone for a mistake that wasn’t theirs the fairest thing to do would be to award all four boys that were impacted by the mistake a medal. 

Here’s a few photos from the day, next week I will post a video from the event, much like the Sports Day video I’ve shared above.

During language for the past couple of months the students have been working on writing personal narrative stories and to celebrate them finishing the unit we held a Publishing Party to celebrate their writing. We had some snacks and listened to a few of the stories. We actually ran out of time for everyone to share so we will continue the sharing stories portion on Monday (I’m not sure if we’ll have snack again!)

A Spark of Electricity and Sports Day

 This week we spent our energy on Sports Day and on learning about electrical energy during our unit sessions. 

After a couple of cancellations due to rain, we quickly decided to hold Sports Day for the Upper Primary on Tuesday morning as the weather conditions looked good and we could involve the three classes and homeroom teachers as well as Mr. Huber as he teaches PE to grades 4, and 5/6. By putting everyone together we could run the events without having to stretch it over several days during our PE periods. It turned out to be a great choice as the weather and students both cooperated and we all had a fun day competing and handing out with friends. 

Here are a few photos from the day, many more will be shared in a special video in next week’s blog as well as the medalists as we will be holding the medal ceremony next Monday. 

The topic of the week in unit was electricity! To get a real feel for how electricity works,                                                                                                                                                               the students were given the task, “Make something work!” To accomplish the task, the students were given a couple of containers with electronic wires, batteries, lights, fans, solar panels, hand crank generators and more (potato or lemons anyone?)

Without any further instructions, off they went in pairs to tinker and experiment! As they worked, they came up with some good questions:

“What is this thing called?”

“Can we get energy from a potato?”

“Why does this have two wires?

“What is the plus and the minus for?”

Once they got something to work, the next step was to draw and label a diagram of it and then to write down their own explanation of how they think it works.

Finally, a couple of the students presented their diagrams and offered their explanations. We had a great class discussion on how electricity works and corrected some misconceptions such as the battery has two ends that both send electricity to the lightbulb to make it light up. After learning about how circuits really work, Soichiro asked a great question, “If the energy flows around in a cycle and back to the battery then why does the battery die?” So we inquired some more, and someone noticed that some energy left the circuit as light and heat, so not as much energy was going back in!

Next week we have more excitement coming up as we will announce the winners of Sports Day at reces on Monday. 

Then on Wednesday, we will have the Cross Country run! Remember, parents are welcome to come cheer them on!

Energy Forms and Fractions

 This week we inquired into the different forms of energy. We learnt that all types of energy can be sorted into either potential energy -  energy that is stored, or kinetic energy - energy of something in motion. 

We also began an investigation into two closely related energy forms: thermal and light energy. The students found some objects in the class or around the school which emitted either heat or light energy and conducted a small experiment. The students used thermometers to check the surface temperatures with the power turned off and then again after a few minutes to see if there was any increase in thermal energy. Some of the objects the students found and tested were: the class projector, a computer screen, lamp, flashlight, cellphone, soldering iron and a hot glue gun. Unfortunately, I only had the chance to snap one photo!

In math, since we spent the last month or so on geometry we reviewed basic operations before moving onto our final math unit of the year, fractions. 

To begin the unit, we folded paper to create equal portions and then the students had to find 3 different ways to fold their papers in half. After cutting the paper in half either as a long, thin rectangle, short, wide rectangle or triangle the students exchanged half with a classmate and then was asked to prove that the two halves were equal. This was a bit of a challenge at first, but then some discovered that they could fold or cut the pieces to show that the two halves were in fact equal.

Cross Country Event

On May 25th the upper primary classes (Grades 3-6) will hold a Cross Country Running event. We began practicing for this and the relay race during our PE lessons this week.

Time: 10.00 am - 12.00 pm

Location Green Belt on Rokko Island
 
We are happy to invite all parents of Grade 3 - 6 to our Cross Country event. 
Please make sure that your child wears the school t-shirt, has a hat, enough to drink and a nice snack. 
 
The students will meet at school at 8.30 and move to the Rokko Park at 9.30 am. Please join us at 
10.00 am at the meeting point
 
At 13.00 pm we will continue with the normal school schedule. The clubs are running in the afternoon 
until 16.35 pm.

Nesta Resort Trip

As mentioned earlier in the year, to make up for the cancelled winter trip, we will be taking the upper primary students on a field trip to Nesta Resort for a day on Monday, June 6th. We will be leaving school at 9am and will return to school by 6pm in the evening.

We would like to ask for some parent volunteers for the trip as the park is big and has many activities. Please email me if you are interested in joining us on the trip. It should be a fun and exciting way to end the year!