It looked just like Santa's workshop this afternoon in room C5. Students had the task of reading the directions and assembling the wood pieces using nails and screws. They did awesome. We even got to painting them, but will have to finish tomorrow. Good life lessons!
We kicked off our holiday week at school with "hat day" on Monday. The other dress up days this week include "dress as your favorite holiday character", "ugly/holiday sweater", and "PJ/crazy holiday sock" days.
In trying to understand how life was different during the original 13 colonies, today we made quill pens and completed an assignment with them.
Today in science we investigated the nervous system and learned how neurons work. To investigate, we created a cup that would drop. The goal was to move the hand before the cup hit it. We tested our dominant hand and nondominant hand, then experimented with our feet. Students learned that we have slower reactions based on how far the neurons have to carry the information for our body to react.
After seven days of having half our wheat seeds in total darkness and half in light, we observed them for the first time. Interestingly, all grew, even those in total darkness. Students learned today that the seeds have a stored energy as carbohydrates. This allows the seeds to sprout and grow for a certain time before photosynthesis is needed to produce their sugar (food). It was suggested by a student that we switch them to see what happens. So, we created a control and have 3 plants continuing in their normal fashion, but have switch 3 from light to total darkness and 3 from total darkness to light. Students will learn that, in this stage, they can begin to produce chlorophyll and start turning from their yellow color to green when presented with light. We will see the results in a few days.
Our newest lab is investing not only what breaks wheat seeds out of their dormancy, but also looking specifically at what plants need and how they get it. We will follow seeds planted both in the dark and in the light and observe their growth over the next few weeks. Understanding what is taking place at a 5th grade level will be quite exciting.
For those students who were able to attend last night's Zombie Shoot, we sure had a blast. After learning about the sport of archery and the safety associated with it, students had an hour (three sessions) to improve their skills at the sport. Pretending not to get attacked by zombies (a great connection to Halloween this weekend), three arrows per round were shot.
We started our unit on field hockey in P.E. yesterday. Students were very excited. During day 1, we covered the techniques of: how to hold a hockey stick, how to pass and stock a hockey ball, and how to maneuver the hockey ball around cones. Each week we will add skills, working towards culminating hockey games we play on the basketball court. For most, this was the first time every using a hockey stick.
We started a new science unit and really started getting into a good lab. Students learned about yeast being a fungus and then designed an experiment to try to get yeast out of its dormant phase. We discovered that yeast needs warm water and sugar to come out of dormancy. Our observations focused around noticing foam/bubbles in the bag, as well as the bag blowing up slightly. Additionally, we could measure the air in the bag to rule out other test items, such as flour. Finally, we learned that the waste product created by yeast when the single cells come out of dormancy is carbon dioxide.
With restrictions easing up somewhat in Nevada, we are able to do a little bit more in P.E. We had some fun this week playing Capture the Flag. We sanitize our hands before going out and upon returning, just to make sure nothing is spread as we try to "tag" students out by pulling a flag off his or her belt. It was a very competitive first round, with the red team winning 3-2. Lots of smiles!
After studying the Native People of the Great Plains, we investigated the difficulties it must have been to carve items out of stone or antler which these early people often did. Using soap and plastic knives, students selected an animal that might have been carved by an early person and attempted to carve the basic shape.
We have been reading excerpts from Tom Sawyer the past few weeks. Today we began comparing and contrasting character traits based upon both their dialogue and actions. While maintaining our social distancing, students held discussions as they analyzed portions of this week's text.
In science, we started a long-term observation lab where we set up a mini-ecosystem today and will place composting worms in (red wigglers) on Wednesday. The goal is to observe how nature "recycles" items such as leaves, left over food waste, and even paper.
