Quill Pens

We connected social studies to reading this week. After reading some short historical fiction stories of the Revolutionary War time, students read an informational article on the writing tools used during that time, quill pens. Next, students made an actual quill pen from a feather and then wrote a journal entry as one of the historical fiction characters using the quill pen and ink.

Liquid Layers

Science this week focused on coming to an understanding of how different concentrated solutions lead to different densities and that the more concentrated a salt-solution is, the more dense it is, making it sink below a solution that is less dense. Students investigated four solutions and ranked them in order of most dense to less dense.

Pi Day Competition

After giving 5th grade students the first 500 digits of pi on Monday, and allowing for 5 days of independent study of the digits, we held a contest today. Each 5th grade student stood in front of their peers and recited as many digits as they could. This was pretty impressive. Top place went to Jenna from Mr. Newman's class, who memorized an amazing 224 digits and could recite them in order. This broke the previous record of 208 and 204. Second place was 129 digits by Alexis, 3rd place was a tie between Matt and Miles, 4th place had our own Ashley who memorized 62 digits and actually sung them to us in two different songs. We had a tie for 5th place with 56 digits by Ben and Angela. Pretty amazing and proud of these 5th graders.

The Art of Photography

The past few weeks we have learned about the art of photography. Students could check out cameras from me and explore in creating artistic photos. We have some great, up-and-coming photographers. Many of their photos were entered into Euphotoria, a community venue for the therapeutic and creative expression through photography exhibit, which will select photos to show at Dolan Lexis on April 21st.

Camouflage/Camping Day

For reading week today, students were encouraged to dress up in camping gear or camouflage. Our class came in strong!

Archie Visits for Reading Week

Today we had the Reno Aces mascot visit the fifth graders to kick-off Reading Week. His handler read a book to the classes and led a discussion on the importance of reading.   

Each day this week students are encouraged to get into the spirit of Reading Week. Tuesday is dress up adventure style by wearing camouflage or camping style clothing. 

Concentrated and Diluted Solutions

Science the past few weeks has involved inquiry in understanding what concentrated and diluted solutions are. In one investigation, students made different soda recipes and analyzed their differences, coming to an understanding that the more concentrated solution tasted better and looked darker. Next, we analyzed models of what concentrated and diluted solutions look like at the molecular level. This week students use balances to understand that the same volume of 2 different solutions can weigh different amounts due to their concentration levels.