Holiday Helpers

 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!

Holiday Hat Day

 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.

Quill Pens

 In trying to understand how life was different during the original 13 colonies, today we made quill pens and completed an assignment with them.

Science of Reaction Time

 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.

Corn and Hockey

This week we are finishing our third reading unit. It involved reading informational texts on corn. Students worked whole-group, with partners, and individually to identify a variety of aspects in the reading, including: subjective vs. objective point of view, finding main details to support a main idea, and analyzing graphs which accompanied the text to see how they relate and add to the reading. In hockey, we play our first hockey game, rotating students into the game every 5 minutes.
 

The Wheat is Growing....Interestingly

 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.

Breaking Wheat Seeds out of Dormancy

 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.