Weekly Update-May 3, 2013

   Dear Families,

The children are so excited to share all the comings and goings in room 27.  It's hard to believe it is already May...times flies when you are having fun!

-Alites

                  Cinco de Mayo

           By Sakina, Kyra, Steven, and Daniel

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, we will be celebrating in class on Friday. We will be eating different types of Mexican food, doing arts and crafts, decorating tiles, making bark paintings, designing lacquer ware (plates), and listening to Mexican music. Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of Mexican heritage. This is something that we all are looking forward to. We can’t wait till Friday to try all these activities!

Crash

By Brian, Emilie and Chris

In our class, we are reading Crash by Jerry Spinelli. 7^th grader John “Crash” Coogan (named for the time he crashed into his cousin) started off as a big bully, but when his grandfather is hospitalized for a stroke, he becomes nicer. His family is not very interactive because his parents both work a lot. Crash used to love tormenting his neighbor Penn Webb, but now he doesn’t enjoy it. We all are excited to find out what happens in the book!

Science

By Rachel, Stephanie, Trevor, and PJ

          Previously in science, we were learning about chemical and physical changes. A physical change is when you change the look of an object but it is still the same object it always was. A chemical change is when you change an object and it doesn’t return to its original form. In science, we did an experiment to prove what a physical change was. We melted ice on metal and hot metal. We proved that when we put the ice on the hot metal, it melted, but we could always change it back to ice if we froze it. To prove a chemical change, we filled beakers with water, put in food coloring, oil and Alka-Seltzer tablets to make it bubble! We made lava lamps!

          This week in science, we started to study geology. We classified rocks/minerals by their properties and figured out what they were called. We learned about all of the properties of matter. We had a really good time in science and we can’t wait for what we will do next week!

Italian Projects

By Madeline, Austin and Caitlin

CIAO! For the past few months each of us was assigned a topic about Italian cities, sports, foods, fashion etc. We shared our projects in front of the class during FLES.  At the end of each presentation, some people asked questions. Also, if you had a topic about food (pizza, zeppoles, biscotti, cannolies, ices, lemon cake etc.) you presented ten facts and then shared the food you brought in to the class. We enjoyed out Italian experience!

Heritage Project

By: Logan, Sanjyot and Jared

This month we are working on our 5^th grade heritage project. We are learning about our ancestors and our past. We are also learning about family traditions and cultures. Logan’s ancestors are from Asia; Sanjyot’s ancestors came from India; and Jared’s are from England. This week we are sharing family heirlooms with the class. Logan is sharing a traditional outfit; Sanjyot is sharing a recipe; and Jared is sharing a bowl. We are excited to learn about our ancestors!  

Math Quest

By Adam, Rebecca, and Michael

What is Math Quest?

          Math Quest is a game involving all of the students in the class.  Students were divided up into 4 teams. They came up with team names. The names are Fab+5, Mathappers, Funky Fractions and The Brainy Bunch. We are going to be practicing our problem solving skills during this unit. As we solve math problems, we will collect travel dots and earn pieces of gold. This combines friendly competition and enjoyment. Math can be FUN!!!!!!