Goodbye Kate 

Last Friday we said, "See you later", but not goodbye, to our classmate, Kate!  We wish her all the best at her new school.  Here are some last group photos before she left!

Ghost Books with our First Grade Buddies

On Monday our first grade buddies visited us to make ghost books.  We helped our buddies cut out the ghosts and put the book pages together.  All that was left to do was to add some ghost faces and some Halloween words.

OPEN HOUSE TUESDAY OCTOBER 1, 2013
I hope to see you all at Open House on Tuesday evening from 6:00pm to 7:00pm.  The grade 6 Open House will begin in my classroom with a presentation about PBIS from Mr. Sherwin.  After this, we will break into the two classrooms.

PARENT TEACHER CONFERENCE SIGN-UP:  I will have a sign-up sheet for parent teacher conferences at the Open House.  Parent Teacher Conference day is Monday November 11, 2013.

In science we had a great time experimenting with polymers.  A polymer is a long chain of hundreds or thousands of tiny molecules. A polymer  can act like a solid or a liquid depending on how it is handled. There are lots and lots of polymers in our world. Some are natural and some are made by humans, or synthetic. Here are a few examples of polymers:

•                 Plastic is one of the most common polymers. There are lots of different types of plastics that have very different properties - some plastics are flexible and can be bent (like a plastic bag or a toothpaste tube) and some are very solid and would split or crack if you tried to bend them (like a plastic plate or a CD).

•                Fabric such as rayon, nylon, and polyester that are used for making clothes such as shirts, sweaters, and socks.

•                Natural polymers - one of the most important natural polymers is DNA, the protein in your cells that makes you who you are! Some other things that come from naturally-occurring polymers are cotton, silk, rubber, paper, and leather. Rubber comes from a natural source - a plant! Before it can be used though, it has to be processed.

Our polymers consisted of Elmer's glue, Boraxo  hand soap, and water.

The directions.

The materials.

The chemical reaction starts. 

A polymer "rubber" ball.

It is all about bubbles in science class.  For the past two weeks we have been studying about the Scientific Method through Bubbleology.  It has been great learning fun.  We conducted experiments to see what cleaned a soapy table better: plain water or vinegar and water.   We also conducted experiments to see which dish detergent makes the best bubble making solution:  Dawn Green, Palmolive, or Shoppers Value.  This week these scientists designed and carried out their own experiments.  All experiments asked which solution made the biggest bubble and the bubble solutions created and tested were very interesting. Some of the bubble solutions tested and compared  were:  blue Dawn and water vs blue Dawn and milk; green Dawn and water vs root beer and green Dawn; organic dish soap and water vs green Dawn.  Other students compared the effect of hot and cold on the bubble solution by testing three Dawn solutions: one room temperature, one cold and one hot.  Other students tested which Dawn dish soap - red, green or blue - made the biggest bubbles.  Students blew bubbles with the solutions and when the bubbles popped, they measured the size of the remaining soapy ring in centimeters.  After 3 trials of the solutions they were comparing, students determined the mean.  Students then presented their experiment findings to their classmates.  

Ask your student about their experiment.