Valentines' Party

The Valentines' Party was a huge success especially since students won an ice cream party.  The PTA had a contest and our class had the most people sign up to be new PTA members.  The kids enjoyed passing out their cards, reading them, and eating ice cream.  Thank you PTA for our special treat!

Boat experiment

Today during our unit on Variables, students are learning about how the capacity of boats affect the number of passengers that can be held before it sinks.  Students used a paper cup and drew a line around it, then they cut the boat on the line.  Next, students found the capacity of each boat by using a syringe and a graduated cylinder.  Once they found the capacity, students put the boats into the water and used pennies (passengers) to find how many it would take to sink it.  They are wondering how the capacity of boats affects the number of pennies.  Ask you child about this experiment today....

Readers' workshop mini lesson

Students are learning about how to identify themes in text. We are using a text called City Dog, Country Frog and finding evidence that backs up our opinion that this book is really about friendship. Students are learning how to take notes, highlight important quotes, and jot down thoughts. Eventually the kids are going to write essays with their claim and evidence. To practice this at home, notice and talk about how the character behaves or changes when you are reading with your child at home. Many times this change indicates theme. Talk about what the author is trying to teach the reader. Let me know how it goes.

Pendulum experiment

During our variables unit, students are investigating pendulums. They are changing one variable and running an experiment to see how the change in variable affects the experiment. Students are following the Scientific Method. Students investigate a question like 'how does the length of a pendulum affect its number of swings?' Next they developed a hypothesis and created an experiment to test whether their hypothesis was right or not. Ask your child about these experiments...they are great thinking scientists.

Quiz tomorrow

5th graders have a math quiz tomorrow over chapter 7. Today student are working on a math review with Mrs. Smith using our new Epson brightlink projector. This equipment allows students to participate even more then ever before. Ask your child about it today.

I sent home with students a science night sign-up form. The Ann Arbor Science museum is coming with 20 experiments, it should be a great experience. Many parents already signed up, if you haven't the deadline has been extended. Also the pancake supper is this Wednesday, February 6th at WLE from 5:30 to 7:00. The cost is $4 and children under 5 eat free. All PTA members receive $1 off. Plus it's all you can eat. Please come and support the PTA.

Pendulums: Variables unit

In science, students are understanding controlled experiments. They all created pendulums that were 38 cm in length and we tested them for 15 seconds. After 15 seconds and 5 trials, students found that they swung about 12 times every time. Discussions began about what other variables we could change next in our experiment.