Earth Day Every Day!

Today I felt honored to work with this group of kids.  They were fantastic on the field trip.  All students were All-Stars while having a good time, relaxing and being interested in learning.  I am just going to post some pics below so you can enjoy the day through some photos too.  Thanks for all you do.  See you at the GK-12 Science Symposium or the Grant School Beautification or the Generals basketball game or maybe Earth Day...

Our day started with an unplanned viewing of the Garden Ecosystem Display on the playground. 

Here is all 5th graders behind the display where it was set up at Earth Day.

Ellie won this refurbished bike in a recycling competition during an Environmental Survivor Challenge!

The second bird of prey we saw is my favorite - the Peregrine Falcon!

Next was an Eurasian Eagle Owl!

Then a Barn Owl that even flew for us!

Finally, America's national symbol - The Bald Eagle!

 

 These guys went for a float!

Ooooh - a Madagascar Hissing Cockroach!

We saw this Red-eared Slider.

And this Ouachita Map Turtle.

And these Grant All-Stars specimens too!


Finally, the shot of the day from our professional nature photographer Cale. Sorry this was just too hard to pass up posting!

Our national bird felt right at home in Missouri.

A Wonderful End to a Wonderful Week

What a great way to end a week of hard work and learning.  The beginning of the week was filled with MAP test preparation and lots of writing!  Students have been working hard on putting together their presentation for the GK12 Science Symposium.  They have been asked to find research and construct paragraphs on two organisms that affect a garden ecosystem.  Along with this, they are working together to create a poster to demonstrate their findings on their current science experiment.

We were glad that we could use today to relax a bit and enjoy the sunshine.  The 5th grade class went on a tour of the Solar System! We covered about 5.5 billion miles in 3 hours! Our actual distance was about 3 miles in order to give students a better idea of where elements in the Solar System are placed if the sun were the size of an exercise ball.  As we walked by planets, students took turns sharing their posters-- telling us information we needed to know about important parts of the Solar System.  See below!

Students listen while Amareon tells us about the sun!

Amareon gives us interesting information about the Sun.

Chaco listens in...

Allen, telling us about Venus.

Abeni informs us about moons in the Solar System.

Sadie presents satellites to us.

Thanks Mr. Nies for an awesome field trip!

Today was Principal's Day, as well, so we presented Dr. Wingert with cards to show how much we appreciate her work at Grant. Students used a lot of creativity when designing their cards-- Dr. Wingert loved them.

Another great week in 5th grade; keep up the good work! 

P.S. Remember to bring in memory pictures next week!

A Full Week

The week of March 31st was full of learning and projects. Within each subject we were working to finalize some kind of learning--

Math: As mathematicians, we were working on multiplication of fractions. This was the first time 5th grade has ever had to work with multiplying fractions, so we were very impressed with their skills! Throughout the week, we tried diagraming and solving multiple fraction multiplication problems. On Thursday, students took an assessment to demonstrate their knowledge. Students did exceptionally well; you can see this work in their Friday Folder.

Reading: Students were given the week to create a poster about an element in the Solar System. Students were given subjects like asteroids, Neptune, and the Milky Way. They were instructed to use non-fiction features in their poster, which they all did do so well. They turned this poster in today, so you should be seeing it in the near future!

Writing: This week, students finalized their opinion piece. Students made great arguments about whether fracking should be banned, zoos should exist, or homework should continue to be given by teachers.  This work is very impressive—I encourage you to read these pieces as soon as they are returned home!

Science: Science has been filled with data collection and graphing. Students created experiment plans and graphs to show the growth in our chard plants.  Yesterday, we played around with designing a new way to measure temperature.  You can find pictures from this activity on yesterday’s blog post.

Social Studies: Students became knowledgeable on why the Constitution was created, what the Constitution is, and why the Amendments are important to our society. We partook in a fun activity where students could only choose only 10 Amendments they wanted to keep-- it proved to be a difficult task!

Overall, students had a very successful week. We were impressed by their ability to work diligently even after being gone for a week! Great job 5th grade!

NEW CHALLENGE!

The first new challenge is to bring in baby pics and fun school activity photos for the memory book!  Photos can be sent digitally or brought in on a flash drive.  We can also scan hard copies and send them back home - same day service!
Kids have been working so hard on these amazing Solar System posters and Opinion articles.  Ms. Sweeny and I are impressed with the results of their math tests today and can't wait to see the final copies of their reading and writing tomorrow.
They worked so hard this week I decided to give them a science challenge today.  We have refurbished one of our greenhouses to be stronger and more efficient.  How efficient?  We will find out by collecting temperature data with digital ibutton thermometers.  Today we challenged kids to come up with a good design.  You can see some of their ideas in the pics below.

 

 
 

SOLAR SYSTEM EXAMPLE

Here is an awesome example of the nonfiction solar system posters due Friday. Students have a scoring guide to help them. This work by Jordan is an example of E work.

Below is our "new" class pet after his annual birthday groom. Happy Birthday Chaco!