Wales

Abigail chose to research Wales because of family ties to the country. There are many castles and fortresses there. She shared photos of the country as well as some of her experience making Welsh cakes. They sure looked delicious! 

Building towers and bridges

We’ve been learning about the strength of different materials and how to build strong and stable structures. The students were challenged to build bridges out of straws, paper clips and toothpicks and marshmallows and toothpicks. They also built towers out of spaghetti and tape and straws, craft sticks and tape. The structures had to adhere to specific criterias such as bearing weight, balancing an object, and some even had height or length requirements. This definitely added another element to the challenges! A lot of cooperation and teamwork was needed to come up with a design, draw out a plan and make adjustments when needed. Some structures fell flat while others held strong. Everyone had a lot of fun during the process. 

                                Spaghetti Towers

                 Toothpick & Marshmallow Bridges

                          Straw & Toothpick Bridges

The One and Only Ivan

We really enjoyed the story of the shopping mall gorilla which is actually based on a true story! Ivan spent 27 years inside a concrete cage before being moved to Zoo Atlanta. He was able to live with other gorillas for the rest of his life but always preferred humans because of how he was raised. Ivan lived until he was 50 which is rare for a gorilla in captivity. We very much enjoyed Bob, Stella and Ruby, the characters in the book, and we were eager to watch the Disney movie that recently came out. Did you know that like in the book the real Ivan actually loved to paint! We are going to read The One and Only Bob next! 

As well as watching the movie we made “me-balls” and used the design process to build animal cages. Everyone agreed that this was the best day ever!

 

Snowman Art

We used tempera to paint the gradient background. Next we used liquid glue and shaving cream mixed together to make puffy paint. The snowmen turned out great!

3-4 Winter Fun!

Ukraine

Emmerson chose to research Ukraine because of her family’s origins. We learned that currency is called Hryvnia pronounced “Riv-nee-ah” and we got to see some. Did you know that the Ukrainian alphabet is not like our alphabet? 

 

France

Solomiia chose to research France because she once visited Paris! She taught us some French words and shared her photos. You can visit the Eiffel Tower in France. Did you know it used to be the World’s tallest tower and it is 134 years old? 

Germany

We learned that Ludwig Beethoven is from Germany and we listened to some of his music. We couldn’t believe that he is deaf and can’t hear his own music! Did you know that children in Germany celebrate Christmas on December 6th and it is called St. Nicholas day? Germany is credited for starting the Christmas tree tradition! 

Egypt

Bo helped us explore Egypt and the pyramids. The view from Google Earth showed us that the country is mostly desert. The Nile River is used for transportation, fresh water and fishing. Fertile land runs along the banks. Bo got to experience traditional Egyptian food at home! Awesome!

Philippines

Brent shared his experiences visiting Philippines as well as the research he did of his chosen country. Did you know that the Philippines are made up of 7640 islands? The climate is tropical and highly populated. Over 108 million people live there. Brent brought a souvenir to share as well as Philippine pesos. 1 Canadian dollar equals about 39 pesos. Thanks for sharing Brent!