Colonies

I am horribly behind in my blogging. My laptop crashed on me last week. Going without a computer for a blogger is beyond stressful. Not to mention school work that needs to get accomplished. I currently have a laptop on loan. Although I am grateful it is a DINOSAUR! Weighs a ton and won't take my camera SD card. Please be patient and hang in with me.... I promise to get posts and pics coming soon!

I thought I could at least post ONE of the student blogs I have in my stack. After all P.R. just wants to share about what he has learned during our Colony Storypath and Amazing Americans Reading unit. No pics! I think I can manage that one...even if it is two weeks late! (my fault-not his!)

This blog is about the colonies/colonist. the colonies were part English, Dutch, Swedish, and British. the colonies were founded in 1607. A famous American colonist I learned about was Benjamin Franklin, who was an inventor. He created the lightening rod and the Franklin stove. the Lightening rod made lightening not hit your house, and the Franklin stove heated your house.

The Revolutionary War started with the Boston Tea Party. The reason the war started was the colonist thought that the British were doing taxation without Representation. In the end, with the help from the French, the colonist won the war.

Thanks P.R. for sharing what you have learned so far. I can tell that reading and social studies have a great interest for you! Benjamin Franklin is one of the people I like to learn about too. I think he was a fascinating character in our history. I am curious if others think that the Boston Tea Party started the Revolutionary War or if the Boston Massacre was the catalyst? Chime in students if you have an opinion!

Stream Tables

Student Blogger, H.C., decided to write about what we have been experimenting with in our Landforms unit. Our FOSS kits came late, but they have been so much fun! Her post explains the set-up perfectly. At the end of her post I will go into greater detail of the three different experiments the class did over the last two weeks. Here is H.C.:

What I wanted to talk about is the stream tables we have been doing in class. We have been different types of experiments. One was flooding! What you do is put a big tub on a desk. Then you get a smaller tub and you put it on the ground or a chair. You put amount of sand (and clay) in the big tub. You need a ruler and a cup with a hole in the bottom. You place the ruler side ways so the end of the rulers touch each side of the tub. Then you place the cup on the ruler You will fill the cup with water and wait until it comes through the sand. Before you do this you write a prediction. You are done after a second cup of water. Then you write a conclusion.

Here is a picture demonstrating the set-up H.C. described

H.C. did a great job describing the set up of the stream tables. The first cup is meant to represent standard rain fall. When you fill the cup with water over the earth material (shaped like a plateau) you can witness what would happen to the earth with erosion in thousands of years in only two minutes. Students write and sketch observations of their stream table as two water cups flow over their earth material. I walked around and tried to point out canyons, caves, floodplains, meandering rivers, deltas and more. Our 2nd experiment has a larger hole in the cup that represents a flooding environment. The 3rd experiment is not part of the FOSS kit investigations. My host teacher wondered if we put popsicle sticks (as a way to create a tree type environment) if it would  lessen or slow down erosion. As I walked around I noticed that the "trees" did change the impact of the erosion. The students had a hard time seeing the difference because in both the material did eventually have a landslide (which would happen in reality as well). I  had students create a Venn Diagram to compare the standard rain fall experiment with no trees and the experiment with trees to highlight some of the similarities and differences. This has been a fabulous way for students to witness landforms forming in a very quick and relevant way. I am sorry to see the FOSS kits leave.

Writing

We finally have another brave student willing to try her hand at blog writing. E.L. would like to share with all of you what she has worked on lately in her favorite subject. Without further adieu here she is...

I love writing. It is my favorite subject. Right now we are learning about descriptive words. We did an activity where we made riddles about mystery bags. We also have written letters from our Colonial Boston characters back to family members in Britain.

My favorite thing is writing in Writer's Workshop!!! It allows us to free write. I'm working on a story about a girl who gets turned into a fairy. Well goodby for now and back to my teacher.

E.L. mentioned about our descriptive memory bags. I wanted to share more about that to our parents and teacher friends. I put six items in brown lunch sacks (green apple, blue mitten, yellow highlighter, red color pencil, blue rubber ducky, and a frog stuffed animal . Sitting a circle students had about 10 seconds to stick their hands in the back and guess the item without looking.Many guess correctly with things like the rubber ducky and apple. However, what is their mental image of those items. We discussed that our jobs as good writers is to help good readers make mental images. To do that we need to write descriptively. We need to put items into context, add details, and invoke the senses. We then brainstormed different sensory words we could use as writers. I had groups break off and write a paragraph or riddle to "show not tell" exactly what was in their bag. This was hard for students because they didn't want to have students guess what it was too easily. I had to keep reminding them that the whole point is that they will guess it. We want everyone who reads our papers to have a clear mental image. Then the groups read their paragraphs and the students guessed again. They all guessed exactly write, down to the color. It was a fabulous lesson!

Our before and after guesses

Sensory Word Anchor Chart

Ex-Reindeer

It's that time again...we have another student that wants to share with you. A.R. came back from Winter Break to find that he had a substitute. I kept trying to build the suspense of where Mrs. London may be. The mysteriousness helped us with our creative writing during Writer's Workshop. I asked the students if they wanted to write about what may have happened to Mrs. London. Here is what are extremely creative A.R. came up with...

Chorus: Miss London got ran over by a reindeer

walking home from our class Winter Break.

You can say there's no such thing as Santa,

but as for me and the classroom we believe.

She'd been drinkin to much coffee

and we begged her not to go,

but she left her work papers

so she stumbled out the door into the parking lot. 

What we found the day after school

there were hoof prints on her forehead

and incriminating claw marks on her back.

Repeat Chorus

Now we're all so proud of Ellie.

She'd been taking it so well.

She'd been drinking juice playing hide and seek with her dad.

It's not school with out Miss London

all the class is dressed in red.

And we just can't help but wonder

if we should save a compliment or give it to someone else.

Repeat Chorus

Now homework is not on our desks
and the math not corrected.
And the blue and red team are sad.
That would have just of made her sad as well
I've warned all my classmates and neighbors
they better watch out for yourselves.
They should never give a license
to a man who drives a sleigh and plays with elves.

Repeat Chorus(2x)

 

A.R. is super talented and creative-I told you. I wonder what he will come up with next Writer's Workshop!

Oregon Food Bank Field Trip

Every Tuesday and Friday I hope to have our students participate as authors on the blog. Today we are featuring our first student blogger, A.W. This very bright and talented student wants to share about her favorite learning experience this year. Here she is...

This year my favorite thing we did was go on our field trip to the Oregon Food Bank. There we packaged pasta into two- pound bags to be redistributed to people in Oregon and SE Washington. It was fun because we all must have laughed trying to tape the boxes with the awkward tape gun. I remember how scared everyone was because we had to wear hair nets.Also, going to the food bank was a easy way to help people. I think a lot of us will agree that the best part was meeting the Trailblazers' coach.He was so tall-I think he was 6'4". I remember that someone asked for a basketball the Trailblazers had practiced with. Sadly, the coach did not have any with him. That day was full of new experiences and one I will never forget.

Packing pasta with glamorous hair nets!

Getting a lot of food ready for the community

5th grade with Portland Trailblazer Coach- highlight of the day!