Special & Symmetrical Snowflakes

This week when the students walked in, they found a message from our classroom character Lightning.  He said that when he walked outside that morning he was welcomed with so many different snowflakes.  He told the students that the snowflakes reminded him of all of the students in the class.  This was because each child in our class was different and unique.  With the New Year, he wondered what unique goals the students had for the upcoming year.  With this, each student in the class started working on a self-portrait and a goal for 2020.  Stay tuned for these wonderful creations!

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In our daily math lessons, the students learned that snowflakes are not only symmetrical but they are formed with radial symmetry.  Radial symmetry is when if you cut the object into fractions from a central axis, each fraction would be identical.  Students explored this concept in many ways through art and different materials.  In one example I presented the students with a circle and proceeded to cut this circle into half (1/2)and then into eighths (1/8).  They learned that to be a fraction each piece must be the same size and a fair share.  They learned that an eighth meant that it was one out of eight identical pieces.

Students learned to draw a snowflake that used radial symmetry in a circle that was divided into fractions.  They made sure that each fraction held the same picture.  Students also created snowflakes that used radial symmetry using loose parts.

Students also explored this concept by using colouring pages, 2D pattern blocks and 3D connecting cubes.  Many students were very excited when they discovered that the bleyblades they loved creating used radial symmetry.

Students also explored the theme of snow through with our weekly themed sensory bin and playdough.

The highlight of the week though was when Scientist Cathy from Scientists in the School came into our classroom.  Here we were able to explore what snowflakes were made of.  Which is water!  Students then looked at the different properties of water.  They learned that water can be formed in three states:  solid, liquid and gas. They learned that when water is a liquid it takes the shape of the container that it is in.  They learned that solid water is called ice and water as a gas is called vapour.

The students explored how moving water can give energy to objects to make them move and how different currents can steer the direction of these objects.  They learned what materials repel and which ones absorb water.  The students noticed that if a material has holes in it, it is more likely to absorb water.

Students also explored which objects float and which sink in water.   They made sailboats and found that they needed moving air or water to move.  When the students uncovered that there was no wind in our class, they blew on the sails of their sailboats or rocked the water to make waves to make their boat move.

While the students explored water as a liquid, they were given a lesson on capacity.  Here student observed how when the same amount of water was poured into two different shaped containers, even though the water level appeared higher in one container, the amount stayed the same.