The Peanut Cracker at Pioneer Center

 We enjoyed a wonderful ballet production at the Pioneer Center on Monday.  Well written, beautifully performed, and a perfect kid's production.

Colonial Games

 For the past week, student groups have been learning a particular Colonial game that was played during during the time period of the original 13 colonies.  After learning the game and making all supplies by hand (tearing apart a straw broom, cutting rope and tying it together to make rings, etc.), each group then taught the class the game.  Time was spent playing the game in small groups before rotating to learning about another Colonial game.  In all, by the end of this week, students will have been introduced to 7 different Colonial era games. It has been neat to see them take these games out to recess. The most popular ones this week seen played at recess are marbles and Fox and Geese (a tag game).

The Beck Garden

 We visited our school garden today and had a lesson from some former Beck students on composting.  In fact, they put our class in charge of taking care of the red wiggler worms, gathering food scraps, and composting some good soil to add to the garden. We now have 1,000 red wiggler worms in a composting container in our classroom.

Convection Currents

 This week in science we have been learning about how fluids, both air and water, can move, especially with convection currents.  Monday our lab had students mix blue, cold water with clear room temperature water. They found the molecules in the cold water were closer together, making that water more dense. That explained why the blue water sank to the bottom when added.  However, when we placed 60 degree Celsius water in a bag next to the vial, the blue water moved up on that side to the top. Then cooled, and returned towards the bottom on the opposite side. This lab really demonstrated convection currents in a very visual way. We will continue to learn more about them this week. 

Spooky Story by Firelight

 We worked all week on writing a spooky story, using good adjectives to make the story have great detail.  Today, we read them next to "campfires".  

Dry Ice Lab

 Who doesn't love the fascinating factors of dry ice?  We capitalized on this idea in class Thursday when we used dry ice to carbonate our homemade root beer. After making the drink and allowing it to carbonate the rest of the day, we investigated the concept of sublimation (going from solid directly to a gas) with several experiments in class, learning that dry ice is -109 degrees F. 

Decorating Pumpkins

 This was the first year ever that 5th graders took part in the tradition of decorating pumpkins. It is all due to this being their last year at Beck, as the tradition has always been for the exiting 6th graders.  What amazing pumpkins they did. I heard many comments from students in other classes saying the 5th graders outperformed the 6th graders in their artistic skills and talent. 

October's Archery Shoots

 We had 2 extra-curricular events for October, both involving archery. The first took place last weekend at Wasting Arrows and involved a "Zombie Shoot".  A fun and safe way to learn one of the oldest Olympic sports, that of archery.

Kachina Dolls

 As we continue to learn about past people of the America's, we studied this past week the Hopi.  One feature about them is their Kachina Dolls. After learning about the people we did a mini report on Kachina Dolls and then students investigated several of the different Kachinas. Finally, students selected a Kachina that meant something to each student and built a replica Kachina Doll.

Crazy Hat and Hair Day

 We ROCKED the Apex Challenges and raised so much money this past week for our school.  Because of our hard work, we also earned many fun rewards for ourselves.  Besides playing a short game of War Ball with Energetic Evan from Apex this morning, we also had an assembly where some teachers got pies in their faces. Additionally, our class personally earned the crazy hat/hair day for today. 

Pajama Day in Class

 Through our hard work in raising money for the school through the Apex Fun Run, we are not at over $100 per lap just from our class.  Because of these efforts, we earned a "wear your PJs to class day".  Such class spirit!

Super Mario Brothers using Bananas

 In computer science today, we used the Makey Makeys and the "water" inside of fruit to make electronic game controllers.  After assembling, students played Scratch games such as Super Mario Brothers using the bananas and apples as the controller.

Lunchroom Workers

 The past few weeks our class has been in charge of helping distribute food during our lunch time.  So many students seek to get out of class 5 minutes before lunch to prepare, but we can only send 3 a week. We will have plenty of opportunities for this wonderful form of volunteerism and giving back to our "community".

Apex Pep Rally

 Today was the kick-off to our Apex Fun Run, which will take place next week.  Formally the Jog-a-Thon, this year's Apex Fun Run will be a sure hit.  Coaches will be coming into the classroom each day between now and then to do lessons in leadership, with the finale taking place next Thursday. Our first class challenge of the school is to see which class logs in the most tonight, earning both a student a free shirt as well as one class extra recess with Energetic Even tomorrow!

Coding Electric Guitars

 We have spent a few sessions of our computer science class time to build a guitar and wire it up to our Makey Makeys.  Today, students used Scratch to revamp the already written code to personalize the sounds as they strum on the guitar.

Physical Education

 Our first unit in P.E. is disc golf. Students have been learning how to properly throw a disc (Frisbee). This week we selected "targets" or "holes" if you think of golf, to try to hit with our discs on the playground. Students are really getting good.  Next week I introduce them to the 3 courses I've created on our Beck playground. We will have score cards and play actual rounds.

Computer Science

 We began our computer science unit with Makey Makeys today. Students learned about the importance of grounding and complete circuits as teams made pianos with both Playdough keys and drawings.

Archaeology Dig

 Well the first week of school is up and going. Let's go 2021-2022 school year.  The end of week one saw our class participating in an archaeology dig on the playground.  The goal was to excite students about social studies this year, but also to help them understand that the early people we learn about is based on artifacts that are found, and we might not know the entire story.  Some groups in our class didn't find all the artifacts and had to analyze only those found, in an attempt to try to describe what culture(s) they came from.  

Stop Motion Movies

 Our final project of the year is to create a stop motion historical fiction movie about the California gold rush of 1849.  After researching and learning about the gold rush in social studies and reading, student began building their movie sets last week. This week they are connecting the topic to computer science and stop motion apps to film and add audio to the movies.