Food Webs and Food Chains

Food Chains and Food Webs

 

This week in science class, we are focusing on Food Chains and Food webs.  We are introducing a lot of vocabulary: Producers, Consumers, Herbivores, Omnivores, Carnivores, and new to many students- Decomposers. We have been working on identifying and classifying various organisms in to different categories.  Students have worked in groups and shared their answers with the rest of the class.  Wednesday, we will be doing an Exit Slip (quick check) over Food Chains and Food Webs.  On Friday, we will put our knowledge to the test and travel out to the Wetlands to see these organisms at work.  I have sent home confirmation/details about our trip with your child, if you volunteered.  Our schedule, if we don't have any rain, will be as follows:

Ballard/Delong homerooms will travel from 9:20-11:10

Cameron/Taylor homerooms will travel from 1:50-3:10 

Remember- Wear older clothes and shoes/rain boots on Friday.  You WILL get dirty!

Wetlands

Our Wetlands Trip

Our wetlands trip is fast approaching!  We will be traveling out to our campus' wetland on October 3rd.  Mrs. Ballard and Mrs. DeLong's classrooms will be going out from 9:30-11:00; while Mrs. Cameron and Mrs. Taylor's classrooms will go out from 1:55-3:00.  I am currently looking for parent volunteers from all 4 classes to assist on our trip.  Students brought home a volunteer sheet, yesterday.  Please fill these out and send them back in ASAP, if you are interested in helping!  The students will be dissecting a log of their choice, looking for decomposers, producers, and consumers on their log.  They will also be taking pictures of the organisms to use for their own food chain they will later create!  This is always an enjoyable trip and we hope to see you out there!

Scientific Method-Paper Airplanes

Paper Airplanes!

 Last week, we walked through the Scientific Method, one last time as a class.  This time, we worked on a classic-making and flying paper airplanes.  The students asked the question: Which paper will fly the farthest distance-construction paper, notebook paper, or printer paper?  In order to limit the variables, I provided instructions on how to fold each airplane, so the only change was the paper itself.  Students worked in groups of 3-each student chose their paper, and then we were responsible for folding and testing that paper airplane.  Today, we shared our data and compared the airplanes to answer our original question.  Tomorrow, we are going to evaluate why not all groups came up with the same results (Examples might include: the force used to throw the airplane, unpredictable wind, etc)

Enrichment Menu

Enrichment Menu

Today, I gave the students an enrichment menu for their Life Science unit (I spoke about this during Curriculum Night).  This menu is completely optional, and intended to extend our learning in our classroom. The students need to choose ONLY ONE BOX and create a final project on the topic.  This project can look like the following, however, if your child has a better way of presenting their work, that is great!  This is simply a list of my ideas:

1. Slide Show Presentation
2. Google Slides Presentation
3. Prezi Presentation
4. Poster Board (with typed details)
5. Tri-fold bold (with typed details)
6. iMovie
7. Stop motion Video

The due date for this project will be Monday, October 27th.  The students will bring in their presentation (on a thumb drive, poster board, etc) and they will present what they have learned to the class.  We talked about remembering who our audience is-5th grade students; who enjoy pictures and color; while also conveying the researched information.

I am looking forward to see what the students come up with!  Please remember-THIS IS COMPLETELY OPTIONAL!!!!

Schoology

Schoology

This school year, I wanted to try a new way of communicating with the students.  I want to be able to pose questions through an interactive (Facebook-like) media.  This week, I have asked students to just log-on to Schoology, by Friday.  Students were able to try this yesterday and today during our Eagle Period and they will also have a chance to do this tomorrow during our Eagle Period.  I really want them to try this while they are at school, so I can help iron out any kinks!

In order to log-on, the students should go to the 5th grade portal page.  Located in the middle of the page is a Schoology icon.  

 

They should click on this and here they will enter their username, which is their last name.# (ex: mine would be taylor.1).  Their passwords are the same as last year-eagles4!  If they try this and it doesn't work, please send me an email and I can work with them at school.  Once they are in, the set up is similar to Facebook, but I want them to join a course.  They have a course access code (on a hot pink sheet that I provided in class; it is different for each homeroom) that will give, only them, access to the class.  Once they are in, I want them to familiarize themselves with the page.  

In the future, it is my goal to use this as a way to pose questions, provide extra credit, use as a tool for homework help, complete quizzes/exit slips, etc.  This is a tool that I will monitor and the students have been reminded of the technology agreement and anti-bullying pledges they have all signed this year.  I am able to see ALL posts and there is no private messaging available to them with one another.  In class today, we spoke about the types of posts that I would like to see on this page: examples-there was a Harvest Moon this month, an upcoming meteor shower, any news about science.  I stressed that this is a site to discuss Science-ONLY!!!

If you have questions or concerns about this activity, please contact me directly.

Grey Out & Working Hard

Grey Out

Today, students wore Grey to show their support for a third grade student who was diagnosed with brain cancer and later found a lump in his lungs.  The student's wore grey today to show their support and many students donated their own money from birthday's, allowances, lunch money, etc. to help his family with finances.  The out pouring of support today was so touching to see.  We talked about what great citizen's they are for supporting someone that they may not even know.  The 2-5 building raised over $7000.00 for this family in one day-that is so Powerful.  Thank you for raising such thoughtful children!!!

 The above picture is Mrs. Taylor's homeroom class showing their support and wearing grey.  Every student wore grey somewhere on them today (Pants, shirt, socks)!  I am so proud of all of them!

 Working Hard!!!

Today,  in science class the students were working hard in groups.  We are really going to work hard on working in groups and what this looks like.  Group work takes place even as we get older, so the students really need to grasp this concept.  With this particular assignment, the students chose their own group; however, in the future they will need to learn to work in groups with student's that I pick for them.  This often poses a challenge as everyone/no one wants to be the leader for the group!

Students completed a Skittles lab yesterday, and today the students worked on putting this into a presentation form- Mini Board (this is a smaller scale of the science fair).  We will continue working on this tomorrow!

Grey-Out to Support 3rd Grade NAES Student

Tomorrow we are having a Grey-Out to help raise money for a young man in 3rd grade who has brain cancer.  If you would like to help their family, please send in money with your child and our 2-5 PTO will come and collect it from each classroom.  If you are unable to contribute, that is okay, we completely understand. 

We would like ALL students to show their support for the young man by wearing as much Grey as they can. 

Thank you ahead of time for your help with this!

Scientific Method

Friday, we started working on The Scientific Method/Experimental Design (we will use these words interchangeably), by taking notes and providing examples for each step of the process.  Today, we ran an experiment using Skittles.  As a class, we walked through creating the Question, Hypothesis, Materials, and how we create a proper Data Table:

• Always use a ruler to create straight lines
•  Title the whole graph
• Label the X and Y axis 
• Use proper increments

  Tonight for homework, the students were using an old experiment (Roll-A-Die) to create a mini board to display their information from their experiment.  Tomorrow we will create a regular mini board using their Skittles experiment from today!