What a week!

Success Kid

I'm proud of my All-Stars because we have had a lot of "Success Kid" moments lately. We have been working very hard in class and I've been seeing a lot of light bulbs turn on. We took a math test last week and it was great to see most of the students do so well on it.

Lets have a quick recap of the fun science experiments we have been doing.

"Fingermometers": One can was filled with very cold water and another can was filled with hot water. When the students moved their hands to the room temperature can, one can felt like the can was hot and the other cold. This helped them understand the importance of accurate measuring and using appropriate tools in science. 

 Elephant Toothpaste: Change in energy- yes. Change in matter- yes. Change in color- no (we put in food coloring). This was a CHEMICAL change! It was so fun we had to do it twice!

Ivory Souffle: What happens when you put Ivory soap in the microwave? The air bubbles in the soap expand and as the molecules heat up they move faster causing the soap to expand.

Was there an unexpected...Change in matter? Nope. Change in energy? Nope. Change in color? Nope.

PHYSICAL change!

We had several students participate in the BYU Triple Crown mile race. I was so proud of these tough kids for running so hard! Way to go!

Mr. Carr even got to pace the 5th grade boys. They sure do know how to have fun. Look at those muscles!

We had a great turnout at the carnival and students were even brave enough to have me paint their faces! I think I'll stick to teaching.

Keep up the hard work All-Stars! Parents: Thank you for all of your support and help. I love teaching these 5th graders and they amaze me everyday with their eagerness to learn and loving personalities.

Off to a Great Start with STEM!

The All-Stars have really shown me they are responsible fifth grade students, which has allowed me to get started with some exciting STEM activities! Here are some of the fun experiments and activities we have done so far:

We made mini lava lamps (oil, water and tub tints). This helped the students learn about density, buoyancy, and solubility. 

Two weeks ago we did a team building and problem solving activity called Save Fred! The students had to move a gummy worm (Fred) off the cup, get the life saver from underneath the cup and ONLY use paperclips.

 If Fred dropped on the desk then they had to start all over again.

The students have also done a lego hotel activity where they had to duplicate and rebuild an exact replica of a Lego building that I created. There were a lot of rules that made this a challenging and engaging task. Make sure to ask your student about it!

Here are the current topics in:

Science- Physical and Chemical Changes

Math- Place Value, power of ten

Writing- Personal Narratives