It's Time!

Even though it is only July 3rd I hear my classroom calling! It always gives me a thrill to start the new year with a clean room, some orgainization and some bright smiling faces ready to start fifth grade! Afterall, this is your LAST year at BES! If I knew who you were, I would call you up and say, "Come HELP!" This is what our classroom looks like now!

 

Time to put some binders on that bookshelf, get those desks arranged for some great  math, and definitely, clean off that back counter! Time to get at it! Can't wait to meet my new students!



A New Year!

Today is Wednesday, July 17, 2013 and I am already trying to get things ready for the new school year! I didn't do such a great job keeping up with my blog last year, but I am going to try and do a better job this year!

I am excited about some changes for next year! I will be on a three man team and teaching only MATH! Although I had a great time with science last year I love math! I am also excited about the possibilities of some technology changes....can't let you know what that is yet as it is still in the planning stages, but I am keeping my fingers crossed!

So I am going to sign off for now and maybe post some pictures tomorrow so you can see the progress in our room. Can't wait to meet all my new students and start another year. This year we are "Building Elite Scholars" so get your construction tools ready! It's going to be a GREAT year!

Static Electricity

We've been having fun again in science class and this time with static electricity. Do you know you can make a can roll with a balloon...without touching the balloon to the can! Just ask your students all about it and they can tell you about positive and negative charges attracting and repelling and how you can create static electricity.  This week we will be making simple series circuits,  parrallel circuits, and simple electromagnets! We are lovin this science!

YEP! We have some static electricity!!!

Ready for some soda can races!!!





Red Ribbon Week, day 3

Short on time...here are the pictures from day 3! Tomorrow is Nerd Day...Can hardly wait for those pictures!

Twin's Day

This week is Red Ribbon Week at BES. We've been having fun dressing differently each day to send a message about not doing drugs. Here are a few pictures of some twins we had on our team today.



Twins...or triplets?

Our boys even got in on the action today!

Twins...triplets...quadruplets!!!

Sweet girls!

Pretty in pink!

Ready for New York!

And before you think this is a minature fifth grader, let me introduce you to Katelyn, my granddaughter, who was bummed because her friends twined with other people so she twined with grandma and "Aunt Terry!"

Week of October 22 - 26, 2012

This week is Red Ribbon Week. Stay tuned for some pictures of our kids for the week!

Parents, please consider donating some glue sticks to our class. We are using these a lot and are about out. THANKS!

UNIT TEST ON DECIMALS THIS WEEK. THURSDAY OR FRIDAY! STUDY GUIDE COMING MONDAY OR TUESDAY!

SCIENCE TEST TUESDAY. STUDENTS ALREADY HAVE A STUDY GUIDE FOR SCIENCE.

Chemical or Physical Change?

So we have been studying all kinds of changes in our world. Looking at the difference between physical and chemical changes. We posted pictures of our latest chemical change, elephant toothpaste, and then today we had some fun with physical changes. Now, making smores can be both a physical and chemical change but today we just explored the physical change. When you melt a marshmellow and chocolate you create a physical change (no new substance is formed). The only thing you have done is melted them both. So instead of a campfire we used a microwave to create some yummy physical changes. I will let you judge how much they enjoyed this activity!!!

Ooey - gooey goodness!



 How do I even start to eat this???

I think I really like this physical change!

Anticipation....watching those marshmellows get HUGE!

It sure was worth the wait!

I can't believe that teacher would take my picture looking like this!!!  There was a moment I was glad my students did not have the camera! I got marshmellow all over my face too!

Disclaimer: Making smores in the microwave can be addicting! Make sure you watch them or they can explode in your microwave! ENJOY!

Decimals

We've been studying decimals in math lately and having lots of fun with all kinds of games and activities (long gone are the days of worksheets all the time). On this day we were comparing decimals and deciding which was greater than, less then, or maybe even equal. It was a fun activity that everyone enjoyed. We will be seeing these mats again with fractions, but for now, do you know which is greater....567.6 or 567.589??? Correct answer......567.6. If you don't know why, I bet your child can explain it to you...or at least I hope they can!!!

Elephant Toothpaste!

We have been studying physical and chemical changes in science class and last week we made elephant toothpaste! Ask your student if this creates a chemical or physical change (correct answer: chemical change). We had lots of fun and lots of "oohs and ahhs!"  It is easy to make at home:

Elephant Toothpaste

1/2 cup hydrogen peroxide (stronger than 3% is suppose to give a big reaction, but we liked the 3% peroxide the best...that's what you buy in any store)
1 T dry yeast
3 T warm water
1 squirt liquid dish soap
food coloring if desired

Mix water and yeast in small container and set aside.  In soda bottle pour the peroxide, detergent, and a few drops of food coloring.

Pour in your yeast mixture and look for a great change!
Now, go brush an elephant's teeth!!! :)

This is easy and lots of fun. It is also very easy to clean up!

Benchmark Testing

This week we will be involved in Benchmark Testing each day. Benchmarks are designed to see what our students have actually retained over the nine weeks and help us as teachers to see what we need to hit a little bit harder. Benchmarks are set up similar to CRCT testing to help relieve some of that stress when CRCT actually gets here. This week we will begin testing by 8:30 each morning and will test as follows:

• Monday - Reading
• Tuesday - English Language Arts
• Wednesday - Math
• Thursday - Science
• Friday - Social Studies

Now....I know you are all waiting for pictures and recipes for Elephant Toothpaste but that will have to wait till this evening!  SORRY!  I am in the middle of a kitchen remodel which has taken all my time this week end. I promise to post tonight.

Along that science thread if you haven't sent in something for our smores (chemical change), we still need graham crackers for our homeroom. We will do this hopefully on Tuesday...which means MORE pictures! Thanks!

Next Week

I have no new pictures for this week.  It was a pretty hectic week with some testing and a day out for me. Stay tuned for some pictures next week. Time to do some experiments and centers during this first week of October. Should be a great week!

NOTICE: TESTS

JUST A REMINDER TO ALL PARENTS AND STUDENTS THAT WE HAVE TWO TESTS TUESDAY. A UNIT TEST IN MATH AND A CHAPTER TEST IN SCIENCE. STUDENTS HAVE COMPLETED STUDY GUIDES FOR BOTH TESTS. PARENTS, IF YOU STUDY WITH YOUR STUDENT AND SIGN THEIR STUDY GUIDES THEY WILL RECEIVE 3 BONUS POINTS ON THEIR TESTS!

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

#4... I lied, I was waaaay behind!

At the end of our mini unit on states of matter we did stations one day. Stations are like centers, however, with stations there are no time limits. With stations you move when you complete a task and go to the next station of your choice. We had three stations last week and three grades! If you look, this doesn't look like traditional quiz taking, but it was on this day! By the way, they have great science grades!

They never look this engaged on a paper and pencil quiz!

Sorting the three states of matter.

Cut and paste on the three states of matter.

Vocabulary sort.

A very productive couple of days in science. Very engaged...and they were even quiet most of the time!!! :)



#3 Science class

We have been very busy learing about physical and chemical properties of matter. One characteristic of matter is its density. Some of you know your students have asked to mix things up in a bottle and see if they layer out showing that different matter has different density (the amount of matter in a given space or volume).

We started by making a simple density cup, but then later we used six different liquids in our density cups. We had to make a hypothesis about where we thought everything would layer out....Most of us voted for the oil on top and that was right! Honey was on the bottom meaning it was the most dense matter we used.

Some of our students tried this at home with different kinds of liquids they had at home. Below are just a few of the first ones. We have a whole shelf full now! We also learned that if you shake things up you don't always get the original results...but that's another science lesson for later on!



#2 ELT

What is ELT? ELT is Extended Learning Time. At a certain time everyday all fifth graders stop for some extra time in reading or math. Fortunately I have the privilege of teaching math during this time. Sometimes learning voacabulary can be boring but it is so important. So no more looking up words in the dictionary and writing mountains of definitions (As parents don't you remember doing that?  I certainly do!). As you can see in these pictures we are trying to match definitions with words and examples of those words. It is alot more fun to learn vocabulary this way and students learn more than just the definitions, but what the words also look like in examples. So on this day we cut and matched vocabulary. The good news is we are getting better!

 We don't have to be in a desk in straight rows anymore to learn!  The carpet will do just fine!

 But a desk will be okay, but so will the floor!