Students worked hard to earn 500 class points.  As a reward, they chose to have an egg hunt on the day before spring break.  Parents came to help hide the eggs and then student were off to find 12 eggs each.  Ms. Wolf hid candy and our class bucks inside the eggs.  It was an "eggs-cellent" activity!

Ms. Wolf received some flowers.  Once the flowers withered, the class dissected them.  Students were able to see seed pods on the back of fern leaves.  Students stripped away petals to find the stamen, pistol, and ovaries of the flowers. 

March 17th was Green Day.  Students wore green clothing for a Student Council sponsored spirit day.  For math we sorted Lucky Charms cereal and calculated ratios of various marshmallows and cereal.  For reading we read about the history of the marshmallows in the cereal.   Then student designed their won marshmallow and created an ad line for the Lucky Charms box.  Students then wrote poems with a green theme.  The day ended with eating green treats supplied by parents.   One parent even made rainbow cupcakes!

We traveled to CSU-Chico to participate in a water themed lab.  Students donned lab coats and then rotated between six centers to learn properties of water.

Fifth graders received two free books during March.  One book was donated by a local woman in memory of her husband, and the other book was from a local organization.  Students were very excited about their new books.  Students were encouraged to trade books once they were read, or donate them to our class library.  Thank you to both donors!

To understand geometry concepts we had several fun hands on activities.  We used protractors to measure angels, we used marshmallows, pretzels, and toothpicks to build prism and pyramids, and we constructed paper 3-D objects.

On March 2nd we celebrated Dr. Suess' birthday with Read Across America Day.  Student Council also sponsored the Pajama spirit day as well.   Our students were allowed to bring blankets and pillows.  Students relaxed on the floor and read books for the entire day.  Ms. Wolf made Green Eggs and Ham as a special treat.

Our class had a reward field trip to Chico in March.  Students with passing citizenship grades and ones that were in good standing with homework were invited to attend.  First, we watched a dance performance at CSU-Chico.  Then, we went to Bidwell park to have a picnic and some free time.  Students could hike, play, or do sport activities.  It was a very fun day.

We did a science lab in class to help students understand why the ocean is salty.    Students had dirt in a tub, blue dyed salt and rock salt, and a squirt bottle.  Students moved the dirt to simulate a mountain slope.  Students poured the bag of salt onto the dirt.  This was to symbolize the salt in the earth.  Students then predicted what would happen when they squirted the salt and dirt with the water.  Students then took turns squirting the dirt and salt with the water in the squirt bottle for 20 minutes.  As they began to squirt, students saw the earth absorb the water and related this to precipitation falling from clouds.  As the dirt absorbed the water the salt began to disappear.  Students predicted the salt was dissolving into the water and earth.  As the dirt was saturated, water began to pool on one end of the tub.  Then students began to see little streams and rivers.  Students predicted the water would be blue from the food coloring, but it turned brown.  Students then realized that was from erosion of the "mountain slope".  Next, students related the pooling water to the ocean.  Students wanted to know if the salt was in the water with the eroding dirt.    Students wanted to set some water out to evaporate to see if there would be salt residue left behind. After one night the silt in the water settled and the water was clear.  Students were surprised, they thought it would be blue from the food coloring.  They then surmised that the food coloring was in the dirt.  We let the run-off water sit for several weeks, until it began to mold.  Students did see salt residue on the sides of the evaporation containers.  The lab was a good model of how water gets to the ocean, how earth erodes, and how the oceans get salty.

Suzie from UC Davis visited our class to teach us about how healthy food choices improve digestion.  She taught us how to make healthy vegetable ranch dip by substituting cottage cheese in place of the sour cream.  Then we all ate the dip with broccoli spears. 

Michael and Carissa represented our class in the school Spelling Bee.  We are proud of both of them.

To celebrate George Washington's birthday, we had a special day of activities.  We made his favorite breakfast, hoecakes and tea.  Each student was able to flip their own hoecake.  Everyone had seconds, thirds, and a few ate four servings.

Student Council sponsored the Hearts for Haiti campaign.  Students in every classroom collected pennies, other change, or dollar bills in a heart decorated jar.  Every couple days the council members went to each class to empty the jars.  At our monthly assembly at the end of January, each class brought their jar.  Representatives went to the front and dumped their jar into a tub.  We filled two tubs at the assembly alone.  The money was counted by a local casino and our students were able to donate $2170.79 to the American Red Cross Haiti Fund.

To celebrate the season of love, we had a Valentine reward day.  Students used their coordinate graphing skills to graph a heart during math.  Next, students alphabetized conversation hearts.  Then students wrote rebus stories using their conversation hearts to fill in the story.  Students exchanged Valentines and enjoyed a class party.

Students read about colonial games in their reading books.  They learned to play Ring Taw, which is a marble game, Eleven Men's Morris and Snail.  Students learned that colonial children had to play games that only required few materials.  Students had fun learning the rules and then developing strategies for each game.

Our class had a great week before the holiday break.  We started off by doing Holiday reports.   For the reports students had to compare and contrast their own holiday traditions with the traditions of Spain, England and France.  We chose those countries because the explorers we were learning about in history came mainly from those places.  We made our own holiday stocking and stuffed it full with treats for each other.  We read three books; Twas the Night Before Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and Polar Express.  Ms. Wolf had us do fun activities with each book: we discussed the poetry form of each book, we acted out parts, we compared and contrasted the books with the movies, and we also got to have some hot chocolate.  Mrs Denman and Ms Melton also got in the fun by having great things in PE like karaoke and sled races.  Student Council sponsored a Santa Hat Day to get the whole school in the spirit of the season.  At the end of the week we had a reward party for earning 300 positive class points.  Ms. Wolf gave each of us a bag filled with school supplies and treats.

Our class earned a reward yogurt parfait party from SNAC.  Our class brought in the most candy after Halloween to send to the troops overseas.  Not only did we get to eat yummy healthy yogurt parfaits that we made ourselves, but we also got to go outside and play some fun games.

To begin our study of fractions, students participated in two fun activities.  In the first activity, students each received their own Hershey chocolate bar.  Ms. Wolf read aloud the Hershey fraction book and led the class through activities with their chocolate fraction pieces.  Students then were able to eat their Hershey bar after lunch.  The next day, the students compared fractions by creating a fraction grid art project.

Our Grandparent's came to school in November to help make pillows.  Each student first sewed on at least two buttons from Ms. Wolf's button collection.  Then students sewed the pillow edges and then stuffed the pillow.  Students enjoyed having the help of their grandparents.  The grandparents then joined the students for lunch.

Students created "Turkeys in Disguise" to save their turkey from the Thanksgiving table.  Students used construction paper and created collage art turkeys.

Students used toothpicks and gum drops to create models of common molecules such as water, salt and carbon dioxide.

Students earned a fun day with fun pages, scary stories, pizza party, and a movie with treats.  They completed 1000 math objectives to earn the fun filled but educational day.

On Friday, October 23rd, our class made no bake cookies.  As we made the cookies we pondered the question about how cookies could be scientific.  Students first mixed sugar and cocoa into a bowl.  Students agreed this was a solid mixture.  Students then added milk and the mixture then became a liquid.  Students added butter and the mixture then was part liquid and part solid.  Students then added heat with the class microwave.  The cookie mixture began to have a scent of chocolate, which signaled the class there was a chemical change.  Once the microwave stopped, the students noticed the color of the mixture changed, which was another signal of a chemical change.  Oatmeal and peanut butter were added and the mixture became a solid once again.  The warm mixture was placed on waxed paper in cookie drops.  As the cookies cooled they became more solid and were ready to be eaten.  The students do know that cookies can be scientific.

On October 22nd our class traveled to CSUC to participate in a hands on lab about Matter.  Students donned lab coats and goggles while rotating through 6 stations.  Each station was about a different concept.  One station was about dry ice, another was about polymers and students made gak.  Students saw that diet soda is less dense than sugar soda.  Students sorted mixtures, practiced with the periodic table, and finally learned that air takes up space.  Students recorded data in a lab notebook.

Our class made Red Ribbon Week posters to decorate Round Table Pizza.  Students creatively tried to use positive messages for their posters.  Be sure to stop in at Round Table to see all 34 posters.

Mr. Denman brought graduated cylinders and metals with different volume and mass.  He led the students through a discovery lesson to solidify the concept that metals can have the volume but be different masses.

Mr. Denman came to visit our class on October 9, 2009.  He talked about how scientists learn about things by taking a sampling.  He talked about a scientist wanting to know about organisms in a pond.  The scientist would take a sampling of the water and use those samplings to make inferences about the whole pond.  To have our class experience a sampling, Mr. Denman brought a 3 pound bag of M&Ms.  He asked the students to make a prediction in their journal about what color would have the most in the whole three pound bag.  Students then made other predictions.  Mr. Denman then gave each student about 2.5 ounces of M&Ms as their personal sampling of the big bag.  He then told the class that scientists record data on graphs.  He had the students count their M&Ms and graph in their journal their individual results.  He then had the class combine their findings to discover green was in the bag the most.  At the end, Mr. Denman let the class eat their M&M's.

     During science we learned about density.  Density is how tightly particles are packed inside matter.  A ping pong ball is about the same volume as a golf ball, but the golf ball is much more dense.  Ms. Wolf layered four liquids in a 2 liter soda bottle.  The dense liquids went toward the bottom and the less dense one went to the top.  The liquids were canola oil, water with green food coloring, Eggo waffle syrup, and Karo corn syrup.  We drew the layered liquids in our journal in two columns.  The first column was to make a prediction and the second column was to record what actually happened during the experiment   Students one at a time came forward and held up an object.  Classmates predicted in their journal where they thought the object would go based on it's density.  Then the student would put the object into the bottle.  Everyone would observe, discuss, and then record where the object actually settled in the liquids.  We learned that an object floats if it is less dense than the liquid. Students wrote about their findings in their science journals.

Butte County Health Department came to do a presentation about how students can try to stay healthy.  Students need to eat healthy, exercise, and get plenty of rest.  Students are asked to stay home if they have a fever.  Students need to sneeze or cough into their elbows.  Students were reminded of safe hand washing practices.

     Mr. Denman came and visited our class on September 22nd.  He reviewed the parts of an atom: protons, neutrons, and electrons.  Then he took the class outside and did the atom dance.  In the atom dance, students are selected to be protons in the nucleus.  Then matching electrons run around the outside of the nucleus.  The class built several atoms: hydrogen, helium, carbon, and oxygen to name a few.  Students learned that only two electrons can be in the first shell.  After that the rest of the outside runners had to go to another shell.
     Then Mr. Denman took the class back inside to write notes in their science journal.  He reviews the states of matter.  Students wrote and drew the states of matter.  Then he demonstrated the states of matter by putting dry ice into a balloon.  Students watched as the balloon expanded because of the solid carbon dioxide sublimating into a gas.  As students watched the balloon, he gave each student a piece of solid water.  Students watched the solid water change into a liquid and then evaporate into a gas.

Students completed a crayon resist art project.  First students traced their hand with crayon.  Then students went over the crayon tracing several times to make the crayon thick and dark.  Next students added various crayon designs around the page.  Finally, students filled in the spaces with watercolor paint.  The crayon resisted the watercolors and kept the paint in designated areas.

I would like to thank the large group of parents that came to Back to School Night.  It was great to see the amount of support the students have at home.  Some parents could not come, so I sent home the Back to School Night packet.  I thought some parents might like to see what the classroom looked like for that evening.

To culminate the paper airplane unit our class held a paper airplane contest.  Students had to use their knowledge of flight principles (lift, thrust, drag, gravity) to select airplanes for three different purposes.  Students used their knowledge of variables to modify their planes.  Students need a plane that would have good lift and be able to go a great distance.  Next, students had to be able to control their planes to get their plane to land inside a yarn ring.  FInally,  students needed a plane that could defy gravity and drag and hang a long time in the air.  After the contest, students went back to class and wrote a 5 paragraph essay about their contest planes and why they were chosen.  What a great first week!

For fifth graders, the Language Arts Standards to read, write, and follow directions came to life with our paper airplanes.  Students made a paper airplane at home.  Students then had to teach their classmates to make that paper airplane.  The Language needed to get a group to follow directions really improved.  Students then read and followed some paper airplane directions.  The class discussed what made a good set of directions, and then were given the challenge to write their own directions.  Students brought those directions to school and worked with a series of partners to edit and improve them.  Below are pictures of this "directions" process.

Room 24 students came up with amazing ads to represent their invented sodas.  Students shared their ads with their group and then the recipes and ads were displayed on the class bulletin board.

     Today was the first day of school.  Students practiced observation skills while doing a science investigation about cola.  Students first determined the properties of different liquids.  Then students sampled soda while they created a sugar and water mixture that tasted as sweet as the soda.  Students were amazed at the amount of sugar in soda.  Next, students were given various ingredients and created their own soda.  For homework students had to give their soda a name and then create a print ad to advertise the cola they invented.  Look for a post tomorrow with cola recipes and ads.  What a scientifically wonderful first day!