Happy Friday!  The class is enjoying the cooler weather today with plenty of outdoor time.   We are making new friends and reconnecting  with old ones.  This year, the students in the fifth grade will contribute to our Friday blog posts, with each student having an opportunity to be the guest blogger.  Today’s post is a collaborative effort by our whole class.

This week, we had our first S.T.E.M. class with Mr. Powers.  We are building catapults that will launch small balls.  By doing so, the fifth grade is learning about elastic and potential energy.  We are using our choice of paper cups, bamboo sticks, tape, straws, glue, and popsicle sticks. We are learning how to safely use tools to cut the wood and bamboo.

Our first research project was to determine if the raven is a good school mascot.  We learned that ravens are smart, empathetic, adaptable, playful,  and problem solvers. They are capable of mimicking human speech.  We also learned that they are sneaky, and will steal food from each other.  Most people in class reached the opinion that the raven is a good choice for school mascot.

We are starting new units in all of our subjects.  In PE, we are playing box ball with the sixth grade class. In Art, we are making radial designs.  In Music, we are learning the sounds of musical instruments.  In Social Studies, we are beginning our research on the Age of Exploration.  In Math, we are learning about scale drawings and models, and will use this knowledge to create our own scale drawings of the inside of the earth.

We’re looking forward to a great year in fifth grade!

Yesterday was bittersweet, as we said goodbye to two friends.  We wish them well, and hope to see them around town.

As a class, we discussed ways to make our transition to upper school as smooth as possible.  The students created a “toolbox” of strategies that they may refer to when facing challenges next year.  I have encouraged them to continue adding to their toolboxes as they talk with friends and family about creating a safe, friendly and kind learning environment.  As they will be the youngest in the new area, we also shared ideas for becoming friends with the older students who will serve as mentors and guides.

Earlier this month, representatives from the Greene County Library stopped by with information about their summer reading program.  Even if you do not live in Greene County, they will honor your reading record.  I encourage everyone to participate, as reading is the best way to keep up skills over the summer.

I also encourage continued math and keyboarding practice over the summer.  Over the next few weeks, I plan to reorganize page of links, adding several more websites for summer practice in a variety of skills.

Safe travels to all who are hitting the road, and I’ll see you in the fall!

We had a great time at Nathanael Greene Park today, as we studied plants of different habitats, deciding how they would be classified botanically.  The students were enthusiastic and attentive, although we cut the day just a bit short, as we heard thunder and chose to play it safe and head back to school.

The classroom is a beehive of activity as the students prepare their science fair boards for judging.  We have had several strong experiments with practical applications.  I am impressed with the quality of research that this group has performed.

Our superheroes have performed all four challenges, with several creative solutions.  We had two or three standouts with each challenge, and I know now that this class is capable of coming up with a way to save anybody in any situation!  You will have a chance to see their creations, as well as their challenge solutions at the trimester celebration on Thursday at 2:30.

The fifth graders are also constructing scale model structures for their Peeps following the principles of architecture that we have studied in math.  We have a houses, a library, day care center, underwater residence, greenhouse, Mars habitat, and several other structures.  We hope to have these at least partially finished in time for the trimester celebration.

In addition to structures, we have had some other fun with Peeps.  We have submerged them in various liquids to see what will happen , and we have invented tools to propel them as far down the track as possible.  There is nothing more fun to watch than flying Peeps!

The spring busy season is upon us.  This time last year, we were packing and preparing for the move to our new building, and I felt that we could never be busier.  I was wrong.  This group of students is so motivated and driven, that they have taken on several projects, and are succeeding at all of them.

The Gala experience was a great success.  Thank you to everyone who contributed to the party.  The kindergarteners had a good time, and the fifth graders were exceptional!

Despite competing with sixth grade in the LAD Fair writing competition, several members of the class earned ribbons.  Three members of our Destination Imagination team will be competing in state championships this weekend, while two of our team members are away competing in a dance competition.  Eight of our class members qualified for regional math competition, with Grayson progressing on to state competition in a couple of weeks. The Sons of the American Revolution will be here soon to hand out awards for their poster contest, including a special award to Sydney, who won the state level competition with her poster on Nathanael Greene.  Evelyn took second place at the Springfield Bar Association Law Day contest with her very creative poster on “Free Speech, Free Press, Free Country.”  It is a joy to watch them strive and succeed!

This week, we have been taking  the ERB, and will  finish testing today.  Many of our superheroes are finished, and are ready to take on the challenges that will be thrown at them next week. This is always a fun activity, and I suspect that their solutions to the challenges will be both creative and humorous.  Also next week, we will begin work on our display boards for Science Fair.  If you have any questions, or wish for me to print out any photographs that were taken during the experiments, please be sure to contact me.

Dates to remember are:

May 1 – Book Club

May 2 – Third Trimester Celebration

May 7 – Grandparents Day and the Spring Concert

The fifth grade class returned from Spring Break raring to go.  We have begun the process of changing our geometric designs and tessellations into fabric lap quilts to be given to charities.  I hope for these to be finished by our third trimester celebration.  That date and time will be secured soon.

The class has been quite busy the past few days preparing for LAD Fair.  It will be held at Willard High School on April 27, 2019.  Although there will be no spelling bee this year, I still encourage you to attend and look at some of the wonderful writing and art projects that area students have created.

In Social Studies, we have begun studying the ancient civilizations of Meso and South America.  As we explore these civilizations, we are seeking to answer the bigger questions of what constitutes a culture, and what happens when cultures collide?

Math Madness has begun in fifth grade, as we are using the NCAA men’s basketball tournament to practice math and geography skills.  We’ll be calculating distances and travel time between venues, collecting data related to scores, and practicing representing the data in different forms of graphs and charts.  While we’re at it, we’ll learn something about the schools’ academic programs, as well!  Students are not required to watch any of the games, but it will add to the fun if they do.

I hope everyone stays safe and warm today.

If you have your copy of What Elephants Know, you may continue to work on your photo album of flora and fauna that is featured in the book.  If you don’t have your copy of the book, do some research into the flora and fauna of Nepal and add it to your photo album.  I can guarantee that almost everything you find will be mentioned in the book at some point!

Have some fun with data collection and graphing today.  Check out weather.com, wunderground.com or KY3 Weather.  Create a graph of our temperature over the past several days, or compare our temperature or precipitation with some other places.  Choose the best kind of graph to most clearly show the information.

Enjoy your weekend, and I’ll see you Tuesday!