What do Plants Chiefly Need?

In answering the simple question, "What do plants chiefly need in order to survive?", we have developed an inquiry based experiment, using student ideas on what to test and how to test them.  We have plants without soil, some in glasses of water only, and others with roots wrapped in wet paper towels that get watered only distilled water or Miracle Grow water.  Others are in the fridge or under the sink.  One is even wrapped up in a plastic bag trying to seperate it from outside air.  We will follow these plants, and how they do over the next few weeks as we also learn the concepts of WHY these plants are portraying certain characteristics that we see.

Carving Figurines of Early People

We have recently learned about the first people to migrate to the Americas.  In combining art, social studies and writing, we carved bars of soap into ancient figurines.  Students will next come up with a logical story, that makes since historically, to write about who carved the figurine, when it was carved, importance to the person/people, how it was lost or buried, etc.

Instruments in Music

Music is being kicked off with a bang in 5th grade, as students are using district supplied instruments and are learning the basics of how to play them. It is exciting to see them all pick up "their" instrument upon entering, set it up properly, and get ready to learn some new concept associated with it.

Archaeology Dig!

In our year-long quest to uncover American History, we began our Social Studies unit by holding an archaeology dig. Students dug in quadrants, as teams. As they uncovered artifacts, they recorded where in their quadrant they were found and took photos of each artifact. Back in the classroom, they are putting together the clues to determine what type of civilization they might have found. One goal of this activity is to teach that many of our ideas of early cultures comes from fragramented clues.

Book Report

Our class took time in class to learn about our first book report today. Our first book report will be over a book, selected by the student, in the genre of historical fiction. This first one is due September 16th, but usually we will have them due every 3-4 weeks. The book report form is by the door for students to pick up when they feel needed. Many students have already chosen a historical fiction book.