Saturday 23 June 2012

Trinity's birthday invitation

Trinity drew and painted her birthday invitations this year.  This was the best one.

Monday 18 June 2012

Hiking Mt Thom

Mt Thom is almost completely vertical.  This did not seem to affect Trinity and Kyler as it did me.  They are in great shape and literally bounded up the hill and stairs.

Explorers term 3

Trinity learned a lot this year about the trials and tribulations that the explorers faced.  She was inquisitive and interested in what they encountered and learned on their journeys.  She was shocked when she learned of the deaths and sickness people faced in their explorations.  The exercise below brought Trinity to the internet, researching the barrens as they are today.  We are both continually amazed at the topical diversity of our country.

Trinity learned about the French and English settlers who were the first to encounter the First nations peoples.  She was disgusted by their greed and inhumane treatment of the First Nations people but also of how the settlers changed the First Nations people.  (Poster seen on June 11 visit)

Community

Kyler learns more about our community all of the time.  This past weekend he entered a fishing derby, in an attempt to reduce the population of pike minnows in our local lake.  He learned how the pike minnows eat the endangered lake sockeye. 

He has also learned about emergency services.  He knows what to do in case of fire and he knows how to call 911 in case there is need of an ambulance.

Mapping term 3

Trinity and Kyler are working on Canadian geography.  As we travel to Winnipeg this summer we will have a chance to cross the mountains and rivers that they have looked at and identified on maps.

                                                   Trinity's mapping







                                                       Kyler's mapping

Friday 8 June 2012

Horse camp

Trinity recently attended a horse camp.  She learned basic skills for taking care of the horse including grooming, cleaning out stalls, feeding and safety around the horse.  She then learned some basic riding.  Her enthusiasm in the photos doesn't even come close to her real life joy.




A noisy day -Sound experiments

Trinity has been learning about how her guitar makes different sounds for the entire school year.  Her instructor went into detail about how the shape of the guitar, type of wood, size of the strings and positions she played all had an impact on the sounds it made.  He was also good with encouraging Trinity to use her guitar as a percussion instrument as well as a string.

Yesterday Trinity and Kyler enjoyed another day of experimenting, this time with sound. The pictures and her findings are as follows:

 
Sound travels in waves like if you snapped a belt it would make a shock wave the shock wave would bounce off the walls.



  We just did an experiment with a ruler and a string. Tie the string to the end of the ruler with a hole.  After you tied the string to it whirl above your head fast.  If it doesn’t work tilt it a bit. Doesn’t it sound like a light saber or a helicopter?


                                                Why does it make that sound?


Well, it makes that sound because when the ruler goes around it makes the air vibrate.   The faster the ruler goes the more the sound gets higher pitched.



All you do her is tie the string to the spoon and tie the other end to your finger.  Then you bang it on a leg of a table or on a chair. Then the weirdest thing about this experiment is that after you listen to the vibration the spoon makes when it hits the chair or table is you put a finger that you tied the string on to in your ear.

                                                Why does it make that sound?

It’s making that sound because the sound wave is traveling up the string into your ear.

                                
When sound travels through solid things the sound waves don’t spread out.  When sound travels through air the sound waves spread out so that the sound is heard more softly.



What you do on this experiment



Cut the balloon to the very top and put it on the cup so that it is covering the whole thing. Then put the elastic band around it. After that put ten or twenty grains of salt or sugar on the balloon and yell or scream right next to it. Don’t you see them dancing?  The louder you yell the more the sugar dances.  The sound waves make the balloon bounce like your eardrum.