Grade Five Alive!

Here at our wacky school on Halloween we don’t dress up like ghouls or ghosts. Instead we decorate our foods with faces. Right now you must be thinking we’re crazy, but don’t think so!

This marvelous project began by reading a book called How Are You Peeling by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers. It was about different fruits and vegetables that were created to show different emotions. Next we could take some beans and try to turn them into eyes, ears, mouths or any other body parts we could think of. Then we had a week to find a fruit or vegetable and give it a food face. Last at the end of the week, on Halloween, we would guess what emotion it was.

Sorry for you parents who like seeing grades on projects. This was only a fun Halloween project. Well, that’s all I can write for now, so goodbye and goodbye to October. ^.^

~Nick

P.S. If you see a rock trick-or-treating tonight it’s me! I am going as a rock because my mom is paper and my dad is, you guessed it, scissors.

In art today we weaved (or wove)! You probably are wondering what it is.

Let me explain. To begin with you need 5 or 3 plastic straws. Then you put a piece of twine through each straw and tape the top. The fun part is to pick out the color yarn you like the most. I chose an awesome bright blue and a gorgeous, dazzling white. Then you can start weaving!! You tie the end of the yarn to the end straw. Then you go in and out, in and out with the yarn. When you get to the bottom of the straws you push some of your beautiful masterpiece onto the twine. Tie a knot in the twine so you know where to stop. Push all of your design to the knot when you are finished.

In our art class with Mrs.McE we added beads, pompoms and more. You could have even made a long woven snake!!! (Check out the snail that Matt made in the picture above.) It was a very creative, marvelous class!!!

~Laine

You’re probably wondering what I am talking about when I say When Pigs Fly. Well sit back and relax as I tell you all about our exciting project.

First, we had to design a parachute that would help a toy pig about two inches long have as soft and slow of a landing as possible. Then, we got to pick a partner to do this spectacular project with. Next, we could use the following materials, tissue paper, napkins, construction paper, newspaper, paper towels, string and tape. After that we constructed the chute and attached the pig. Last, we dropped our flying pigs from the top of the stair way.

When Pigs Fly was the best science experiment ever, and I hope we can do it again sometime.

~Kaitlin

On Friday I finally spilled the beans to the students about this blogging project. I told them, “I can hardly stand it. . .I’ve been keeping a secret from you!” Then I displayed the classroom blog on the TV screen and distributed information for parents. We discussed the concept of Web 2.0 (how the Internet is now a two-way street—not just a place to find information, but a place where anyone can share information).

Many students didn’t know what a blog was. Now they do. Blog is short for web log—an online journal written in chronological order with the most recent entries listed first. There are many reasons people blog; educational objectives are listed above on the page Why Blog?.

A fundamental goal of this project is to help students feel connected to their schoolwork. I hope our classroom blog provides a creative outlet for students by encouraging them to think about what they’re learning. I also hope it will spark conversations between students, parents and others.

Get those permission slips in . . . On Monday a student blogger will be randomly chosen to contribute the first student-generated post to Grade Five Alive!

~Mrs. S

According to Bill Nye, the science guy, the water we drink today could once have been dinosaur spit. Thanks to the water cycle, the earth’s water has been recycling and cleansing itself for billions of years. This precious substance changes state from liquid to gas to sometimes solid and back again during this never-ending process. Of course, we’re all familiar with:

• EVAPORATION — heat from the sun causes liquid water to turn into water vapor
• CONDENSATION — cooling water vapor returns to liquid form and gathers in clouds (or on glasses of lemonade)
• PRECIPITATION — liquid or solid (hail!) water too heavy to remain in the clouds, falls from the sky

In fifth grade we also learn about evaporation’s close relative, TRANSPIRATION. Did you know that leaves sweat just like people do? It’s called transpiration, not to be confused with perspiration or transportation.

Me again, Mrs. S. The students aren’t quite on board yet, but I didn’t want to lose the positive momentum building on our classroom blog. And besides, yesterday was a memorable day — We got a new student in Room 246!

Imagine being the new kid, eight weeks into the school year? So many new faces and new routines to learn. I’m proud to report that the adjustment was smooth. Thanks to welcoming teachers and a congenial group of fifth graders, the new member of our classroom family seems comfortable and happy.

By the end of the week, it will feel like she has been with us since the beginning.

A student gushed to me last Friday. “Ms. McP is the best teacher ever!” What elicited such enthusiasm from a fifth grader, you ask? Well, this particular comment was in reference to the annual Egg Drop Competition conducted by Ms. McP, science teacher extraordinaire. Every October, perhaps to save our goey little uncooked friends from a worser fate on the 31st of the month, Ms. McP’s students participate in this delectable experiment.

Step 1: Construct a creative, functional, well-designed capsule (parachute optional), to withstand a 20-foot plunge from the second story stairwell into our school’s first floor lobby below.

Step 2: Decorate, bond with, name, and securely insert your “egg-stronaut” into its capsule.

Step 3: COUNTDOWN — DROP — Retrieve and inspect for damage.

Some wayward adventurers fare better than others . . . . but the students all learn about engineering concepts and the effectiveness of certain design construction and materials used to protect things as they descend from a height.

Hello. Let me introduce myself—I’m Mrs. S, and I am a teacher assistant in Rooms 246 and 249. I had some free time this fine, long Columbus Day weekend and wanted to get our classroom blog rolling by modeling a couple of posts for our students.

Don’t get me started on revisionist history, but I must admit that having been back at school since the last week in August, we are all most deserving of this Monday holiday commemorating the voyage of Columbus. In social studies, we are currently studying the early exploration of the New World so I think it’s relevant to include this quote from our Harcourt Brace history text:

“Christopher Columbus never knew that he had not reached Asia. Believing he had reached the Indies, he called the people he met Indians. Until his death in 1506, Columbus kept saying that he had found a new water route to Asia. Other explorers, however, proved him wrong.”

So, did Columbus “discover” America? He couldn’t have, since the native Americans were already here!

Photo Courtesy of NASA.