Bighorn Conservation Efforts

This week teams of student-scientists were assigned a particular herd of bighorn sheep from Montana to analyze. Using real data collected over many years, the scientists created tables and graphs on populations and other trends. The graphs were analyzed and the information presented to the class. Through learning about the different conservation efforts impacted the different herds, students came to understand the different factors that are in play dealing with bighorn sheep.

Youth Wildlife Conservation Experience

Friday we were invited to a private learning experience at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center. Upon arriving, we learned about bighorn sheep and how wildlife is managed in North America. Next, three sessions of outdoor career seminars took place where students selected which seminars interested them and attended those, as they could only see 3 out of the nine that took place. During lunch a keynote speaker, who is a freshman in college in Wyoming, gave pointers on how to pursue a career in wildlife, with ideas on what to do now through college. Finally, two hours of hands-on learning stations took place.

Dr. King's Speech

This week in literacy we have been doing a close read of the first third of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have a Dream Speech". Breaking down the high academic language and deciphering the metaphors has taken days. Feel free to ask your child how Dr. King pulled in history of the Civil War in his speech. Ask why the speech was held at the Lincoln Memorial. In fact, feel free to have him or her tell you what he was saying in his speech in simple, 5th grade terms.

Data in Math

After Winter Break we have moved into a unit in math dealing with data analysis. One of our first lessons was created to help students understand how data can be useful. We pretended we were going to do a fund raiser on making and selling friendship bracelets. We discussed how favorite colors and designs had to be incorporated into our bracelets to be profitable. The size of the average wrist is just as important. Taking an hour of math time, students collected each person's wrist size to the nearest 1/8 inch and then plotted the data on line plots. In analyzing the line plot we were able to find median, mode, the mean to determine which size of bracelets would need to be made the most.

UNR Basketball

 Attended an event at the University of Necada, Reno today. Learned about some different colleges and got to watch part of the women's basketball game. 

Mixtures and Solutions

Today we got to see how evaporation impacted our salt solution, which has been sitting in our classroom since last Thursday. We broke out the microscopes and hand lenses to analyze the crystal structure and will later compare this to those crystals produced in a sugar water solution that is also evaporated.

Instruments in Music

Mr. Unruh has borrowed a collection of violins for the students to learn the basics of music with. Since next year students have the opportunity to choose what their music program is (choir, strings, or band), this presents a great opportunity for everyone to get some hands-on experience with a stringed instrument. It also fits nicely in with our recent field trip to see the Reno Philharmonic Orchestra.