Hanging Out with New Jersey

If you haven't tried Google Hangouts in your classroom, you should!

Last year's class participated in over a dozen Hangouts with various classrooms from Sweden to Argentina to England to USA.  To date, this year's class had only done two!

This past Wednesday, we connected with Ms Wachtin's Gr 5 class from Millstone River School in Plainsborough, New Jersey.  She was a teacher that had hung out with us last year and wanted to reconnect by playing "Mystery Hangout" where classes take turns answering yes/no questions in order to guess each other's location.

Hangouts are a window into another place.  Instant time travel!

The New Jersey class asked questions such as:

• Are you in America? (No)
• Do you border water? (Yes)
• Does your province border Hudson Bay? (Yes)
• Does your province end in a vowel? (Yes)
• Are you North of 50 degrees longitude? (No)
• Are you in Toronto? (No)

Waiting for a reply to one of our questions

We asked things like:

• Does your country's flag have blue in it? (Yes)
• Are you in America? (Yes)
• Is your state north of Kansas? (Yes)
• Is your state west of Kansas? (No)
• Does your state start with the letter "M"? (No)
• Does your state start with the word "new"? (Yes)
• Does your city border the Atlantic? (No)

If you look closely, you can see the list of States we thought it could be after our 4th question above.

We also were introduced to Ms Wachtin's class pet; a chinchilla named Simba!  We had no choice to but to introduce "Woody Harrelson"...our class tree.  {Sigh!}

The kids seemed enthusiastic about playing again with another class.  If you'd like to connect, we are in the EST and you can drop me a note at robertabrooks@mytools2go.ca

~MissBrooks

They Blinded Me With...SCIENCE

The "Trash Master" mascot "toadally" approves of Aaliyah and Tealie's lantern

In order to wrap up our Electricity Unit, the students still needed to design, build and test a device that produced electricity.  These Gr 6 scientists certainly charged ahead once presented with the task. Nothing like a little hands on learning to ignite some passion.

Since they had already experimented with static electricity and creating simple circuits, the students built on this previous learning.  They were allowed to create a circuit but had to devise a switch or way of turning it on and off to level up.  The device simply had to create sound or light, or move or charge.  Some of the kids decided to "myth bust" some findings on YouTube.

Kayla and Mairna's projector, including a homemade "flashlight"

Josh and Aidan's sound amplifier

Hailey and Emily M's flashlight

Owen, Derek and Isaac's homemade battery for a remote

Evan and Macenzie's "oven" (aka marshmallow melter)

There are even more experiments that did not get photographed like a lemon charger for an iPad, a motorized boat and solar battery powered car.  Click here to see the devices in action.

This was certainly an electrifying way to end a week filled with activity...

~MissBrooks

Granola Bar Math

After participating in the Camp Sylvan Eco Leaders of Tomorrow experience, the amount of waste that we generate at school began to nag at us.  But what to do about it?

St Bernard is so fortunate to have a snack program that runs under the direction of some very dedicated parents and grandparents.  We understood there were stipulations in what was served for snack and considered composting as an action project to extend our learning from Camp.

One wrapper measures 10 cm x 14 cm for a total area of 140 cm2.  

Usually we get granola bars about once a week.  That's 25 wrappers for our class...286 wrappers for the entire school.  So we wondered if it would be better to make our own granola bars since there would be no wrappers.  This would be quicker and easier to implement if given the go ahead.

Here's the amount of space 9 wrappers takes up on our carpet.

First, we asked our principal if it would be possible that our class make the snack for the school and if the snack program would cover the cost.  Mrs Daragon said yes!

Next, we set about determining everything we would need to find out to prove that this cooking adventure would be beneficial to the school.  After we brainstormed, we knew we needed to do a little math!

• length, width and height of the bar we currently received so that the homemade ones were the same size
• the area of 1 wrapper so that we could figure the total area of wrapper going into the garbage (the wrapper is NOT recyclable)
• the number of ingredients in the Kirkland brand of granola bar (the one that is purchased for snack program)
• the number of ingredients in the recipe we would use (we omitted almonds, flax, wheat germ)
• the cost of the ingredients needed to make the recipe for the school
• the cost of purchasing enough granola bars for the whole school
• the cost per bar if homemade (unit price)
• the cost per bar if purchased (unit price)
• the amount of time to make and pack for snack
• the amount of time to count the bars and pack for snack  

Finally, we booked the staff room during our Numeracy block and the students worked as partners to measure out ingredients and press the mixture into aluminum pans.  We then needed to refrigerate the bars so that they could be served the following day, which also happened to be "Boomerang Lunch" day where any garbage must be returned home so that there is no garbage generated through lunch and snacks.  Good timing!

The finished product!  Looks like a GIANT granola bar!

We heard many positive comments from different classes so we feel that in the cooking, we were successful. In terms of time, money and eco friendliness, we'll let you decide.  Check our findings in the pictures below and comment your opinion.  We can't wait to hear what others think!

~Miss Brooks