Fact and Opinion

In Mrs. Essenburg's Classroom we have been learning how to tell the difference between facts and opinions.

What is a fact?
A fact is something that can be proved. 


For example, Thanksgiving is a holiday in November is a fact. We can prove it is true by looking at the calendar.



What is an opinion?
 An opinion is something we think or believe. 

For example, Thanksgiving is the best holiday of all is an opinion. We can't prove it, and some people might agree and others might disagree.

As we read, it is important to think about what we are reading and determine whether statements are facts or opinions. Thinking carefully about what we read helps us to understand the text in a deeper way.

We did a lot of fun activities to practice understanding the difference between facts and opinions. 

One activity we did was to make puzzles for our classmates to solve using the Stick Around app.

Here is a puzzle that Jillianne and Lainie made about facts and opinions about Tabby Cats.

Izzy made a Fact and Opinion puzzle about Fall.

Then, we worked together with a partner to research a topic that we found interesting. We wrote down facts and opinions about that topic, and used Book Creator app to write pages for a book.

We wrote one page with facts and one page with opinions. 

Then we put them together to make a class book!The video below shows our class book set to music. Check out the facts and opinions about our topics.




Different opinions are a great way to start a discussion! It is fun to talk about opinions that we agree or disagree with. Can you choose an opinion from the video above and let us know if you agree or disagree with the opinion and why? We look forward to your comment.

Halloween Happenings!

It was a pumpkin filled day in Room 15 last Friday. We were able to have a lot of fun with pumpkins while learning at the same time.

We focused on three new vocabulary words:

Mass

Kilogram

and

Circumference

We had six pumpkins in our classroom. One we set aside for later (more on that below), so that left five. Each table group was given a pumpkin. Of course we had to give each of our pumpkins a name!

Our pumpkins were:

Hard Head Bob
Pumpadoo
Buddy
Ginger
and Rusty.

First we had to find the mass of our pumpkin. What does the word mass mean?

Mass tells how much matter is in an object. Figuring out the mass of an object is similar, but not the same as, figuring out the weight of an object. We measured the mass of our pumpkins using kilograms.

What is a kilogram?

A kilogram is a unit we use to measure mass or weight. We made our own kilogram weights!

Then we used the kilogram weights to help us estimate what the mass of our pumpkin might be. We observed our pumpkin closely and discussed with our group what the best estimate might be.

Then we put our estimate in a Google form.

We also learned the word circumference.

What does the word circumference mean?

We observed our pumpkin closely again to try to estimate the circumference. We used centimeters as our unit of measure. We then entered those estimates in our Google Form.

We also counted the number of creases in each pumpkin and entered those in the Google form as well. 

Here are our estimates!

After estimating, it was time to find out what the mass and circumference of each pumpkin actually was. 

We made a prediction. We thought that the larger pumpkins would have more seeds than the smaller pumpkins.

Then it was time to find out! We got inside our pumpkins and counted the seeds together.

Check out our chart below for the actual measurements and how many seeds each pumpkin had. Our prediction was partly correct. One of the larger pumpkins had more seeds. The other did not.

 Finally, it was time for our last pumpkin. 

For this pumpkin, we were going to see how many rubber bands it would take for our pumpkin to explode!

First we predicted:

What do you think the mass of the pumpkin is?

How many rubber bands would we need to put around the circumference of the pumpkin for it to explode?

How long would it take?

Here are our predictions:

Then it was time to find out. Watch the video for our pumpkin explosion!

The results were:

Mass: 8.6 kilograms.
Rubber bands: 288
Time to explosion: 31 minutes.

What is your opinion of our pumpkin investigations?

Have you ever used mass, kilograms, or circumference before? If you have, how have you used it?

Please share in the comment section below.