Grade 5 have been learning about the different spheres of the Earth including geosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere. Júlia recounts the final project they had to produce:

In Science we were learning about the four spheres. Grade 5 had to create posters showing interactions between the four spheres. To do that, we looked up interactions and came up with our own too. We had two options to complete the task, either making one big poster explaining 10 interactions or more, or dividing the poster into 10 parts and creating single interactions. I chose to make one big image, colour coding the different spheres. The interactions could not be the sphere interacting with itself, it had to interact with different spheres. An example would be a water turbine. It is made by humans (the biosphere) with water (the hydrosphere) is the source creating the turbine turn and making energy. What interactions could you come up with?

-Júlia

For Halloween we looked at procedural writing and how to carve a pumpkin. We wrote our own procedural texts and then applied them to watermelons. Here Kelechi’s account of what happened:

Last month was Halloween so grade 2-5 carved watermelons. I enjoyed this project because we got to create our own desired faces. We had to first draft our faces on paper, then we had to scrape all the watermelon guts to make sure it wouldn’t rot. After that we drew our faces on the watermelon and then carved it out. It was a pretty messy project but despite all the mosquitos, I had fun.

-Kelechi

Postcards Galore!

This month Grade 2-5 have been writing postcards on the new and natural wonders of the world. First we were assigned a wonder and were given a sheet of facts to turn into ten sentences that sounded like we visited the wonder but didn’t copy the facts. Next we wrote our paragraphs into our books, as a first draft so we could edit them. Finally we rewrote our paragraphs onto nice paper, added a fake address and drew a picture of the wonder on the other side. This was a fun way to practice putting information in our own words.

-Avery

This month Grade 2-5 have been learning about Fractions. Grade 2 were learning the words for fractions and how to draw them. Grade 3 were learning to compare fractions. Grade 4 were learning how to add and subtract fractions. Grade 5 was learning how to divide and multiply fractions. I really enjoyed when Ms Stacy was teaching us different ways to divide and multiply.

-Divine

This month Grade 2-4 have been learning about erosion, weathering and deposition. We did experiments to investigate the different types of each process. Here is Batiste’s account of what happened:

This month Grade 2-4 have done experiments. There were four but we were only able to do three. The first experiment was to take two chalks and two bowls. So then we took one chalk and put it in a bowl. Then we poured water in it. Then we put the other chalk in the other bowl then poured vinegar in it and we found out that the vinegar eroded more chalk than the water. It was very fun.

Another experiment we did was we took a box then we put 5 pieces of sugar in it. The sugar was supposed to be soft rock. So then we took the box and shook it. When we opened in the sugar was kind of broken. Then we put 5 pieces of gravel it then we shook it and the sugar was a lot more broken. So we found out hard stone can break soft stone easily. It was fun also.

-Batiste

This month Grade 3 and 4 were learning about fossils and we did a fossil record. In the fossil record there were types of sands like red, green, white and orange. So we had to come up with a kind of story using Fossil A and Fossil B. This kind of story had to make sense so we couldn’t do there was Fossil A then a meteor hit then Fossil A came back to life, that didn’t make sense. So we had to make one that made sense. The fun part that I think was when we were putting sand in the cup because it looked cool when we finished and it was like a thing I’ve never seen. But the white sand was actually sugar but maybe white sand exists. When we wanted to add sand to the cup there were stations. The meteor sand was green. After we finished we had to write down about the fossil.

-Raef

We finished our Wonders of the World unit by creating travel presentations as if we were a travel agency for that country. We found out lots of information about the country including where it is, the climate and weather, activities to do, interesting facts about the country and the wonder as well as the significance of the Wonder. Each grade member brought different information with them from the activities we did earlier in the trimester. We then created powerpoints and presented in front of the class. Many groups came dressed in the same colour to show we were part of the same company. Here is JJ’s account of this activity:

This month grade 2-5 have done a travel presentation. For example we would take the new 7 wonders and the person who had the same wonder as you was on your team. I had Avery, Adham and Mouza. First we would come up with our travel agency name and ours was called The Country Explorer. Then we came up with our logo. Then we found activities to do in our country. That was fun because there was an underwater museum. Then we put all the information into a powerpoint.

-JJ

We have been looking at water on Earth. Grade 2 and 5 completed an experiment showing the distribution of water on Earth. Grade 2 drew diagrams and wrote statements they found out and Grade 5 made a graph to represent the results. Here is Ibrahim’s account of what happened:

This month in Grade 5 we did an experiment with some water. The plan was to see how much supply of water we have in what category. We took a liter of water in a bottle and this was all of the water on Earth. We took some of that and put it in another cup labelled fresh water. We had less fresh water than salt. 1 drop went into water vapour and a little in ice. What was left in the liter bottle was salt water. We had more salt water than vapour, fresh and ice. The experiment was interesting even though we have tons of water we need to purify more. After that we did a graph showing how much more salt water is on Earth than the rest. What I liked about the experiment is that the result could be changed anytime so its not a permanent answer.

-Ibrahim

To work with our graphing unit we measured our shadows to find data for our line plots. We stood outside and traced our feet, then measured the height of our shadows. Grade 5 measured throughout the day to see the changes in shadows. They found that in the morning it was really long, and it got shorter until about midday when the sun was overhead and the shadow tiny. It then got long again the other direction throughout the afternoon. Here are some things Simon knows about shadows:

In the morning the light was facing in the front but in the afternoon the light was at the back. This is because the Earth turns in each hour. If the sun faces here then the other side gets black. That is called a shadow. You can’t see shadows at night.

-Simon