Yr5 Weekly Update – 02/24/17
Central Idea:
Matter exists in different forms which can be changed and used for different purposes
UOI
If you were around the 4th floor kitchen you would have noticed some enticing aromas coming from there throughout this week. Giving off a smell is one of the signs that a chemical change has occurred. Change has been the main concept this week; how matter can change and the different types of changes that can occur. The chemistry cake was a great success in helping students understand some of the indicators of a chemical change. They got the opportunity to research the purpose of the ingredients of a cake beforehand to make an informed prediction about what will happen when one of the ingredients is deliberately left out. Of course they also got the chance to use the rest of their senses to observe the results, the favourite being able to taste the results. We have also had the opportunity to evaluate our investigations from last week, relating to condensation, evaporation and dissolving. Did our investigation we planned help answer the question we wanted to find out? Did we measure the right components? Did we need to measure everything we did? Are we sure it was a fair test? This is part of inquiry learning, proving and testing theories, reflecting and learning from our mistakes.
English
Our language learning this week was again closely intertwined with our unit of inquiry. There is a continued focus on scientific vocabulary to help us explain articulately the science behind many demonstrations or experiments. We have focused on locating the information needed when researching the purpose of ingredients of a cake and what chemical and physical changes are. This has helped up to then use what we remember of explanations to create an oral explanation. We had immense fun videoing and peer assessing explanations using the checklist we created from Sharing The Planet unit. Did our peers use causal connectives? Were they able to explain the process clearly and using the correct sequence of events? Guided reading this week has had us thinking really deeply about what the differences are between an observation, a prediction and an inference. We have been trying to spot some within our reading about matter. Why don’t you ask your child what the differences are?
Maths
What better opportunity to inquire into the different ways to measure and how measure is used in everyday life, than when we are busy investigating matter? This week has seen us learning how volume and mass is measured using an open ended problem designed by Peter Sullivan. This approach is designed to give the students a challenging problem which is meant to be ‘hard.’ We observe the challenges they have and give them opportunities to learn from each other throughout their lesson. With guidance from the teachers, they then get the chance to share their strategies to continue to learn off each other at the end of the lesson. Through this approach the students consolidate and develop their skills in estimating, comparing and measuring. We have, of course, also been using measure in our Unit of Inquiry, measuring different liquids, measuring temperature and measuring time amongst others.
Homelearning:
20 minutes of daily reading
Continue to use Mathletics to practise fractions and measure.
Design a certificate for ‘Scientist of the day.’ The certificate can be A4 size, but you choose the design.
