Hello Cannon Parents!

It’s hard to believe that our school year will be ending soon!  It has been a terrific year of learning at Cannon and we want to make sure our students have the opportunity to continue to engage in great learning experiences throughout the summer.

We have designed a Summer Learning Calendar for our K-4 Cannon students that will provide them with information about how to participate in fun summer reading challenges, math practice, engineering and design challenges, and even brain-based physical fitness activities!  This calendar will also include FUN events that are going on right here in the Grapevine community throughout the summer that your family can participate in for FREE!! 

Although it will be possible for all K-4 Cannon students to participate in our fun Summer Learning Calendar activities, we are encouraging our students to complete the activities in a “digital way” if possible.  As a result, we would like to allow all Cannon students that are planning to return to Cannon next year to keep their school-issued device throughout the summer. 

ALL PARENTS MUST DO THE FOLLOWING SO THAT YOUR CHILD CAN KEEP THEIR iPAD THIS SUMMER:

• Click on this link to let us know whether or not you give permission for your child to keep their iPad throughout the summer. 

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1cTjswqGRQ6bkzUQAOknaF9YwyvqvTbibAYpNvmXz2fU/viewform?usp=send_form

 

• All students who receive permission to keep their iPads during the summer will have the Summer Learning Calendar and any related apps downloaded on their iPad next week. Parent Information will also be sent home, so that you know how to help your child throughout the summer.

 

• All students who do NOT receive permission to keep their iPad during the summer will receive a paper copy of the Summer Learning Calendar to bring home to share with parents next week and their iPad will be collected next week to be safely stored for the summer.

We hope that you will allow your child to keep their iPad for the summer and take advantage of our Summer Learning Calendar Fun!! All students that participate and complete summer challenge requirements will be eligible for fun prizes and recognition when they return to school next year.  Help us keep YOUR  child engaged in learning…..in a FUN way, all summer long!

We are exploring a new STEM project this week.  We are working on a Hands-On Standards STEM in Action lesson called Muddy Mats.  In this project a boy named Liam wants to engineer a mat so his wet dog can come in the house and not make a mess on the carpet.  Today we read the story and discussed the problem and some solutions they use at their homes for this problem. We discussed how this type of engineering is material engineering. We reviewed how we have already done a materials engineering unit and discussed our schema on what helped us solve that project.  Then we started our first lesson to build our knowledge on how waters properties will be important in this build.  

Working with our 5th grade buddies to finish our greenhouse challenge.

Today in social studies we looked at specialized jobs in a factory.  We had a class challenge to to see if specialized jobs make a factory faster at producing goods.  We had one student work as an individual and the rest worked using specialized jobs.  We were producing flowers.  We found that specialized jobs did make a difference. The factory made 15 and the individual only made 3.  

Today in science we continued our study of the parts of the plant.  Today we looked at the leaves.  We discussed photosynthesis.  We talked about how plants require light as a form of energy to develop and grow.  The way this energy transfer happens is by using chlorophyll.  Chlorophyll is the green pigment in plants that is used to trap energy fro the sun.  Each green part of a plant has chlorophyll.  Chlorophyll helps plants absorb light and convert it into sugar through photosynthesis.  We rubbed leaves and witnessed the chlorophyll.  Then we made leaf rubbings and discussed the different types of leaves.  We labeled and classified the leaves.

Calling all Artists!

Please create a 2D image of your school mascot as a superhero!

(Must be in color, and no larger than 11 x 18)

One lucky artist’s work from each school in GCISD will be chosen for a top-secret project.

Please turn these into your art teacher or front office by June 4^th with your contact info on the back.

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First and Last Name:___________________________

Grade:_________________________________________

School:________________________________________

Phone Number:________________________________

This weeks engineering challenge goes with our science projects about plants.  We are learning all about the needs of a plant in science.  So our engineering challenge is a Milk Carton Greenhouse.  They must construct a working greenhouse using an empty milk carton, straws, a large Ziploc bag, soil, seeds, scissors, and tape.  They will build a working green house from the materials provided and observe the growth of their plants over time.

Mrs. Highfill, the art teacher, is teaching some really exciting art classes this summer for the GCISD Summer Enrichment. Go to www.gcisd-k12.org to sign up. The classes are ABC Drawing, Amazing Animation, Dynamic 3D Drawing and Digital Photography!

Field Day Fun

Family STEM Night

Thursday, May 8th

Please make plans to join our Cannon engineers for an evening of "STEMtastic" activities!

5:30-  "A Farmer's Life"  Choir Concert in the cafeteria

6:00-7:00   Visit STEM activities throughout the school.

We look forward to seeing you!

Tomorrow is field day also.  Our class needs to wear any color of blue shirts.  We are really excited about both events.  

Today for STEM we looked at the structures of 4 flowers. We discussed where the pollen would be located and what special properties their hand pollinator would have to posses to get the job of pollination done. The four flowers we were looking at are the Poppy



the Dutchman's Pipe



Jack in the Pulpit



Bucket Orchid



Then I showed them the models we would use to emulate the flowers for our hand pollinators. For the poppy we will use an open dish. For the Dutchman's Pipe we will use a test tube. For
Jack in the Pulpit we will use a test tube with an index card bent over the top. Lastly for the Bucket Orchid we are using PVC pipe. The students were put into pairs and given a model of a flower. They brainstormed designs and decided on a final design they are wanting to test tomorrow.

For STEM today we tested materials to see if they would be useful in our hand pollinator project. We first decided how we were going to test the materials so that they would be fair tests and the results from our tests would be accurate. We decided on a light dip and then 3 taps for dropping. We used baking soda to emulate the pollen in flowers. They concluded that the pipe cleaner and the pom pom were the most successful materials for picking up and dropping off the pollen. They even discovered the pipe cleaner when rolled like a coiled snake would pick up even more pollen. They said it was because the surface area was larger.