Light

This week JK explored the element of design “light” through a scientific lens. We studied light, light sources, darkness, shadows, and learned about the upcoming eclipse on Monday. (Reminder: Monday early dismissal at noon!)

Next week, we will explore the element of “space” which includes both outer space and physical space. I will be talking to JK about the upcoming move to KBI after Pesach, and we will be discussing their thoughts and feelings, and collecting their input on what toys and games to bring with us to design our new classroom space! If you haven’t already talked to your child(ren) about the upcoming move, please consider this weekend as a great opportunity to do so. Quinn, the school social worker, will be running a workshop on transitions to help strengthen the learning environment in the classroom and to help the children prepare for the move to KBI. If you wish to opt your child out of the workshop please let me know before April 11th as this is when our workshop will take place. We will be talking about change, and playing games that focus on transition (change), as well as their favourite things in the classroom that will be coming with us.

Shabbat shalom and have a lovely weekend!

Homework Alert!

This week we are focusing on the element of design “light” – what excellent timing as we are about to experience a solar eclipse! This morning we explored light, light sources, darkness, and shadows. We also discussed how the moon revolves around planet Earth, which also revolves around the sun, and had a visual demonstration of a solar eclipse using a flashlight, a basketball, and a smaller ball. Spoiler alert: this ties into next week’s element “space”!

The homework tonight is to replicate the demonstration (please watch this video if you’d like a refresher) and have your child describe it to you. They can also bring in a flashlight or small directional lamp (such as this if you have one – please do not buy one) to have a turn explaining it to their peers.

upcoming events!

We’ve got some exciting things happening here at OJCS that will carry us to the end of March! See flyers below for more details.

Wednesday, March 20th: Innovation Day
Please join us in our classroom from 9 am to 9:45 am to experiment with us and hear about our scientific investigations!

Monday, March 25th to Thursday, March 28th: Ruach week!
No school on Friday, March 29th.
There is a Grade 8 raffle happening that week as well, see flyers for info on ticket prices and prizes!
Here are the daily themes:
Monday: Our class costume theme is “מה שבא לי”. Borrowing from one of the themes of the Purim holiday, ״ונהפוך הוא״, we are taking a phrase that we have worked hard on flipping around – ״לא בא לי״ – and are flipping it into “מה שבא לי”! This is also the day we visit the school wide Purim carnival, please see the flyer below asking for donations of gently used toys for prizes.
Tuesday: Tacky Tuesday. Wear your most mis-matched clothing!
Wednesday: Wild West! Yee haw cowboys and cowgirls! Let’s practice our cowboy hustle!
Thursday: PJ Day, also dress down day! Bring your toonies and loonies in support of the Humane Society!

just another Wednesday here in JK…

Even though it was too cold to play outdoors, it didn’t stop us from expanding our horizons indoors! We worked on our letter of the week, P, and named SO MANY words we know that begin with P. We did some name writing practice, built with all kinds of blocks, talked about Tu Bi’Shevat, learned some new words (trunk, branches, leaves, and roots), learned about shivat ha’minim (the seven species), and started preparing window frames for our upcoming germination project.

 

And then…

JK was so excited to receive this AMAZING pack of accessories for our light table, through Scholastics Rewards from the book fair. Thank you Brigitte, and thank YOU parents for your Scholastics books purchases!! This morning we checked out the translucent shape beads and used them to measure animal x-rays. We can’t wait to experiment with all of the other cool things: eye droppers, test tubes, translucent patterns, and paint scrapers. This kit even came with translucent overlays that we can paint on directly, and then wash off to experiment and play with another day!

Homework alert!

This month, we are learning all about the weather, starting with weather vocabulary and terms in all three languages. We are also tracking the weather for the entire month of November and need your help!

In your child’s backpack today, you will find the weather wheel they made in class, as well as their homework! It is a weather tracking form for PD days and weekends. They learned how to use it by colouring in each appropriate rectangle for the date noted to the left, and they are very excited to have the responsibility of homework!

**Please do not do any homework over Shabbat**

Please send back completed charts (or a photo of the completed chart) on Monday, November 27 so we can add the data points to our classroom chart.

Thank you for your collaboration!

just a rainy day… and some reminders

A quick reminder to please make sure your child is dressed appropriately for the weather! October and November are very tricky in Ottawa, and we do go outside to play in light rain. The playground is also wet We might have sunshine and 30 degrees or rain and 10 degrees. We recommend a rain jacket, rain pants, and rain boots for outdoors, and dressing in layers because the temperature can vary. Thank you!

Upcoming:

NO SCHOOL on Monday, October 9th

SUPER TOP SECRET EXPERIMENT on Tuesday, October 10th. Guess what we are doing!

 

OCTOBER 17 GLOBAL MAKER DAY! Please send all kinds of recyclables, like all sizes and shapes of cardboard boxes and especially tubes/rolls (like from paper towels and toilet paper). Plastic containers (yogurt, sour cream, etc.) are also welcome but they must be cleaned and not smelly. (Trust me on that one!) We are also asking for corks, paint stir sticks, popsicle sticks, and other things like that. The class that brings the most items is added to the draw to win a prize and because we are the smallest (and most adorable) class in the school… let’s do this!!!

Fusion Power!

This morning we had the pleasure of a visit from Mr. Josh Ray in our classroom instead of going down to the maker space! We started investigating the states of matter and how to change them. Today’s topic was “melting” and we remembered that there used to be a TON of snow and ice on our playground and then it melted because hot temperatures are here! Our activity is creating a masterpiece using our many skills. To name a few: fine motor, 1 to 1 correspondence, matching, patterning, and… PERLER BEADS!!!

We’ve still got a lot of work to do on our creations before we fuse (melt) them together (with high temperature!) but here is a sneak peek:

Innovation Day 2023

What an awesome morning we had, continuing our explorations of density and our sink or float investigations. We kicked off our week by following the scientific method. We asked a question (Will it sink or will it float?), made predictions (hypotheses), conducted experiments, made observations, and discussed our conclusions (what we learned).

We then started discussing density: What is it? Can we see it? How does density make something sink or float in water? We used bingo stampers to show what density looks like: lots of dots very close together means more dense, and dots that are farther apart are less dense.

We experimented with all kinds of objects that we found around our classroom. This morning we got to test out our hypotheses/predictions with our guests!

Then, we progressed to asking if we can change the density of water so that an object that previously sank would now float. We tested it out with an egg (an egg-cellent egg-speriment, if you will). We discovered that eggs will sink in water. We talked about how we can try to change the density of water by adding something to the space between the “dots” (from our density art). We poured in some salt, and let it dissolve and the egg… SANK! So we added more salt. LOTS. And the egg still sank! Because we are great scientists, we didn’t get discouraged, and we didn’t give up! After our guests left, we added EVEN MORE SALT and finally…. The egg FLOATED!!!!

If you’d like to recreate the egg-speriment at home, we highly recommend using a tall glass.

The inspiration for our experiments came from learning about the story of Passover, when baby Moses floated in a basket along the river. We also noticed that we were using salt water for our egg-speriment, just like we have salt water at our seder! JK didn’t want the experiments to stop, so, tomorrow they will be bringing a package to use at home. Send us your photos or comment below so we can share with the class!