Field Trip Fun

To finish our social studies unit about community past and present, we headed down to our very own Magrath Museum.  Take a minute to check it out - they even have on old grade one schoolroom.

And we couldn't finish our plants and animals unit without a visit to the local fish pond.  We saw leopard frogs, water skeeters, and a water snake!

Mr. Sabey's Farm

Mr. Sabey had a farm E-I-E-I-O!

And on that farm he had some cows, E-I-E-I-O!

Thank you Mr. Sabey, for showing us the animals at your farm!

Spring, Summer, Winter, Fall

We adopted a class tree and watched it change through the seasons.  Here are winter and spring.  We named our tree Woody.

Garden City Greenhouses

Last Monday we took a field trip to a local business - Garden City Greenhouses.  This was one of the best experiences of our school year.  Here are some pictures of our adventure learning about plants from Cathy (the owner).  She let us each try a fresh, ripe tomato, and apparently you can eat pansies!  I didn't try one myself, but the kids who did said they were very sweet.

If you're in Magrath and want a neat place to go, you don't want to miss these greenhouses.

Look What Grew In Our Garden!

We did it!  We finished growing our plants.  Look how great they look - now we will take them home to plant in our own gardens.

Sprouting Seeds of Knowledge

We're growing plants in grade one science.

Tuesday we planted the seeds and gave them their first drink.

Here we are journaling our experience:

Now we wait, watch and predict what is happening - how long with the plants take to grow?  Which will grow the fastest and the tallest?  We are so excited to see the results!

Bulletin Boards

We are very proud of the work we do in grade one.  This is our artistic depiction of Mrs. Thomson's grade one garden.  We are growing and blooming in the sunshine and rain of Magrath Elementary School.  And the best part is, our garden is better because we are all different!

This is the bulletin board we made in our color unit.  It shows our experiments with mixing the primary colors to get secondary colors.

The Owl and the Pussy Cat

In our Building Things unit for science, we read the story, "The Owl and the Pussy Cat".  After examining their boat, we developed and constructed our own design.

When we evaluated our work, we decided that next time, we would build our boats out of something that could actually float on water.  Paper just sunk.  Oh well!  That's science!

Building Things

We spent a lot of time building things this year for science.  Here are some of the houses and bridges we constructed.

Gingerbread Geometry

We used recyclable materials and a variety of shapes and craft supplies to construct gingerbread houses.  This meets some goals and objectives in our study of geometry and the scientific study of building things.

Those almost look good enough to eat!!!

Use Your Sniffer!

Here we look at different noses. 

Some animals use a snout, like the pig.  Some animals use a trunk, like the elephant.  Some animals use a forked tongue to smell with, like the snake.  Some insects, like the butterfly, the fly and the moth use their antenna and sometimes their feet to smell with.  

Do You Hear What I Hear?

We are now embarking on a marvelous new journey of scientific discovery.  We have begun studying the five senses of hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell.  The Alberta Program of Studies best summarizes the understandings that our classroom community will strive to learn as we explore these fascinating abilities of our bodies:

"Students develop an awareness of their own senses and how they are used.  They learn that each of their senses provides information about particular aspects of our environment; and that, together, the senses enable us to know things and do things that we would not otherwise be able to do, or at least not as easily.  Students learn about the function of their senses, how they are cared for, how they could 

be damaged and how one’s own ability to sense things may differ from those of other people and other living things.  Through this topic, students learn to sharpen the use of their senses and describe as accurately as possible the information that their senses provide." (Alberta Science Grade One Curriculum)

We started out our unit by looking at the ability of our ears to gather sound an

d work together with our brains to give us the sense of hearing.  We tested our hearing with sound effects games, explored and shared the ability of different objects to make sounds, researched and discussed the basic anatomy and care of the ear, and experimented with its function by predicting and testing how vibrations affect the surface of a drum.  We also looked at the importance of hearing in our lives, and its role in our society in relation to the hearing impaired.  We reviewed the importance of sign language in communication for those who do not have the ability to hear.

Here's a fun try it for home:  Explore the effects of vibrations with a friend.  Hold a filled balloon to the ear of a partner and place your mouth on the opposite side - speak right into the balloon.  How does the vibrations of the air in the balloon affect the sound your friend hears?

Did you know?  Sound can also be used to enhance the sense of sight.  Machines such as sonar and ultrasound can use sound waves that bounce back from objects to create pictures for us to see.  An example would be sonar that maps the ocean floor, or an ultrasound that allows us to see a growing baby that is not yet born.  Bats also use sound to see as they fly through the dark. Can you find other animals that use this sense to see?

Check out 2Learn.ca for many great resources on hearing and the five senses.