Check out all the terrific things going on in Room 27!

-Alites

Science

By Brian, Austin, and Jared

In Science Lab we studied dilution. Each partnership was given 6 cups. We put food coloring in 1 of them. Then we took 20 drops of the solution from Cup #1 and added them to Cup #2. Then we took 20 drops from Cup #2 and placed them in Cup #3. We kept doing that until we got to Cup #6. Cups #5 and #6 were lighter in color.  The color in the cups changed from really dark red to really light. This experiment was called, Is Dilution the Solution to Pollution? We learned that dilution is not the solution, prevention is!

Oil Spill

By Adam, Logan, and Stephanie

In class, we talked about ocean pollution. We made a model oil spill in class. We talked about what would be the best way to clean up an oil spill.  Then we tried to clean up our oil spill. Many of the ways worked. We used detergent, paper towels, newspaper, a piece of string and cotton balls. We used water with blue food coloring for the ocean and vegetable oil and coffee for the oil spill. Oil spills are very dangerous to the plants and animals that live in our oceans. We also wrote to President Obama about our concerns and asked what the governemnt is doing about oil spills. We enjoyed this project.

Tuck Everlasting

By Rachel, Steven, and Trevor

           

The book we are reading for read aloud is Tuck Everlasting. Right now in the book, we are up to the part when Mae Tuck hits the Man in the Yellow Suit with the barrel of her shotgun because the Man in the Yellow Suit was taking Winnie back to her home. The constable was an eyewitness to the “crime”. He tells the Tucks that if the Man in the Yellow Suit dies, Mae will be sent to the gallows.  Mae can’t go to the gallows because she won’t die because she drank from the magical spring. Mae is sent to jail but her family and Winnie have a plan to sneak her out.  The plan is to sneak Winnie into the jail and swap Mae out so she can run away and not be sent to the gallows. Eventually, Winnie gets taken back to her home but Jesse comes to give her a small bottle containing magical water from the spring to drink when she is 17.  Jesse hopes Winnie will marry him when she grows up. We really want to find out what happens to the Tuck family and we are hoping the best for them.

 Making Meaning

By Becca, Chris, and Sanjyot

This week we read a book called The Summer My Father Was Ten. We then got 7 cards with statements retelling the story. We placed the cards on a plot chart which included the exposition, the rising action, the climax, the falling action and the resolution. The climax is the most intense moment in a story. We also talked about the setting, conflict, characters and the lesson learned in the story. This activity helped us understand the structure of a story through an amazing book.

Pioneers

By Yunseo, Kyra, and Michael

We are beginning a new unit in social studies about pioneers. Each table is posing as pionerrs on a wagon train. We came up with names for our wagon trains. We also received pioneer family identities. We are watching educational movies about the life of pioneers. We are watching a movie called Little House on the Prairie. Every wagon train has a wagon master who makes the final decisions for a wagon train. The wagon masters are Christopher, Rachel, Madeline, Caitlin and Michael. We are being graded on the entries we write in our pioneer journals.  We are fully immersed in our subject. We can’t wait to learn more. Westward Ho!

Alite's Little Chefs

By Madeline, Emilie, and Daniel

We had a Thanksgiving feast in our classroom! Our class made vegetable soup and corn muffins. We poured in 4 cans of chicken broth into a pot and we all got to chop up vegetables such as zucchini, pepper, onion, potato, and carrots. We also made corn muffins using ingredients such as flour, milk and eggs. Then we mixed it all together and scooped them into cupcake tins. We had a celebration and enjoyed our home cooked meal and some special deliveries from our class moms! We also watched Little House on the Prairie while we ate dessert. That was one incredible celebration!

MATHEMATICIANS

By Caitlin, Sakina, and PJ

This week we learned long division with decimals. We are going to have a test this week on division. Our teachers helped us study for the test. We used study guides, played math games, and visited 3 stations that focused on different division concepts. Thanks to Mrs. White, Mrs. Aloe, Ms. Meyer, and Ms. Corn we have all become Little Einsteins!

Check out our students cleaning up oil spills!

We are so happy to be back in the swing of things.  We truly missed your children and are excited to be back at school.  We have been so busy this past week.  Read all about what we've been up to. 
 -Alites

Making Meaning

By Madeline, Sanjyot, and Adam

This week we explored fascinating sharks during Reading Workshop. We filled out a KWL chart. That stands for what we know, what we wonder and what we learned. Next, we wrote a question about sharks on a post-it. We looked through shark books to find the answer. When we found our answer, we wrote it on another post-it and stuck them on a shark poster. We learned something new and we have a new poster for our classroom wall!

Math

By Rachel, Steven, and PJ

            This week in math we have been learning about long division. At first, we learned how to divide by 1 digit divisors and then by 2 digit divisors. We also learned a trick to help us remember what the steps are to long division. It is D=dead M=mice S=smell B=bad R=really. The letters stand for Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Bring down and Repeat. We are still getting the hang of doing long division and these tricks are helping us learn how to divide!

Scarecrows

By Brian, Jared, and Sakina

We made scarecrows on Fun Friday! Mrs. Aloe and Mrs. White brought in baby clothes and costumes, and we brought in newspaper. We stuffed the clothes with newspaper, and tied them with rubber bands. It was fun crumbling newspaper to put in the clothes, and some groups used special heads like SpongeBob balls and Jack-o-Lanterns.  The scarecrows were out in the hallway. We had lots of fun making scarecrows!

The Election 2012

By Stephanie and Trevor

This year Barack Obama and Mitt Romney went face to face in the presidential election. Barack Obama won the presidency. He got 332 electoral votes and Mitt Romney got 206 electoral votes. Barack Obama’s Vice President is Joe Biden.  In class we watched commercials and CNN Student News which was all about the election. We also colored a map which showed the candidate that won each state. We had so much fun learning about the election!

Tuck Everlasting

By Caitlin, Logan, and Michael

We are enjoying our read aloud Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbit. It is about a girl who is lonely and wants to run away.  She’s in the process of running away when she runs into a good looking teenager named Jessie Tuck. Jesse is drinking from a spring. Winnie wants a drink but Jesse is immediately opposed to the idea of her drinking from the spring.  It turns out that that spring freezes your appearance in time. It ensures that you can never die. There is also a man in a yellow suit that overheard the revelation of the spring. We are eager to read more.

Writing Celebration

By Becca, Austin, and Yunseo.

This month we published our first piece of writing in fifth grade. We wrote personal narratives. The writing celebration gave us the opportunity to read each others writing. We had a great time commenting on other people’s stories. We wrote what we liked about each story. We have been working on our personal narratives for the past month!  After people read our pieces, we felt like our hard work had paid off! 

Worldly Wise

By: Emilie, Kyra, and Daniel

          Wordly Wise is a program that helps us build our vocabulary. We have a Wordly Wise test each week on Friday.  Each week we get 15 vocab words to study. Everyday we get Wordly Wise homework in our Wordly Wise Workbook. On Monday, we are introduced to the words and review the definitions.  On Tuesday, we look at the parts of speech for each word. On Wednesday, we get a packet with sentences. Each sentence has a missing vocabulary word. We use the text clues in the sentence to fill in the blank correctly. Some of the words this week are abolish, escalate, monstrous, translate, and character.  We have noticed that Wordly Wise improves both our vocabulary and writing.