In unit this week, we continued to explore sources of energy. After looking at the chart last week, we were curious about why more countries don't use renewable energy sources. Some of us did a bit of our own research over the weekend and added to the class learning board.
To further our understanding, we investigated a bit and found these two videos:
Though the second one was a bit difficult to understand, we had a very interesting discussion about why some of the non-renewables are still so popular and what the future of energy looks like.
In preparation for our upcoming trip, we watched this video about the National Grid. Then we generated questions we'd like to ask.
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| Once we returned, we checked and all of our questions were answered except one! |
Our trip to LitGrid was fantastic! We got to see where all the work of sharing energy around Lithuania happens! Ms.Vilija shared what she does, how energy is produced and consumed in Lithuania, how they predict supply and demand, and a bit about the dangers of electrical lines through some silly videos. She also shared the LitGrid website where we could see how much energy was flowing to or through Lithuania every moment of the day!
Once we returned, we connected our learning from the trip to our learning board and generated some new questions.
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| Pink sticky notes mark our connections from the trip to our previous learning |
We then had a check-in on where we were in our learning and where we thought we needed to go. We each chose how we'd like to share our thinking.
We then watched the first half of this oldie but goodie:
We were fascinated by the idea that electricity was only ONE form of energy and that several others existed. Our big learning from this video included:
- energy makes things go/move
- potential is stored energy; kinetic is movement
- kinetic energy will never be greater than potential energy
- energy can change from one form to another
Finally, to wrap up our study of energy for the week, we explored potential vs. kinetic energy. We sought to explain why 'kinetic energy can never be greater than potential energy'...or can it?
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| After defining potential and kinetic energy collaboratively, we decided to dig into what it actually means |
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| Sofija and Liz explain their thinking and give us some examples of a ball bouncing |
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| Yigit and Basel explore what happens when a car moves at a high speed and meets another moving object |
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| Antanas explains his diagram of a wrecking ball |
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| Some of us chose to share in writing/pictures |
In language arts this week, we worked on our individual poetry book creations. We noticed that our poems have gotten more interesting and varied as we've sought out feedback from more of our classmates. Many of us have truly begun to know ourselves as writers through this process!
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| Veronika refers to an early draft of a poem as she revises |
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| Liza and Sofija create their poetry books |
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| Eva creates a new 'found poem' |
We also spent plenty of time taking our MAP tests this week.
In math, we continued to explore fractions and their uses. We learned about finding the ONE when investigating fractions. For example, if 😊😊😊😊 is 2/3, what is the ONE?
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| Steven shares the ONE in blue if 1/2 was shown in green |
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| Gerda builds the ONE |
We also spent time playing different games to deepen our fraction knowledge and review some of our skills with ordered pairs and probability.
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| Sofia, Aleksandras and Rojus practice probability with 'Grab Bag' |
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| Steven and Domantas practice ordered pairs with 'Up and Over Squares' |
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| Migle and Eva practice finding fractions of a set in 'Fraction Of' |
It was a beautiful, sunny park day with 4A this week! With all the blooming dandelions, we picked them, gave them to friends and finally ended up showering each other with them!
We enjoyed getting to celebrate our friend, Veronika's (early) birthday. She will turn 11 on July 14th!
She even brought in her GIANT dog to join the celebration!
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