iFifth

Here are the two songs/videos that I have been playing in class to help you memorize the books of the Bible.  Which one is your favorite?  Leave a comment and let me know!

Please go through the Shake, Rattle, and Roll website using the link below.  Read/listen carefully and look at the illustrations and animations.  If you finish you may do the other 2 links on landforms and erosion.

Shake, Rattle, and Roll – click on Earthquakes, Volcanoes, and Glaciers to start

Rock around the Park

Erosion Simulator

When you are finished, you must leave a blog comment of 1 or 2 sentences telling something new that you learned from the website.

Recently our 5th grade students researched endangered animals. They needed to learn about the animal’s habitat, why it is endangered, and how we can help protect the animals. We used the Trading Card Maker from Big Huge Labs (a fabulous free tool) to generate our trading cards. Click on the link below to see our gallery of trading cards:

Endangered Animal Trading Cards Gallery

This week we are learning about the forces that cause changes to the Earth’s surface.  Here are 2 Audioboos where the students explain about some of the things that they have learned.

It certainly has been interesting to track the results of our “What’s Been in your Bin” survey. Thank you to everyone who participated!  We are going to spend some time in class analyzing the data using the Google Spreadsheet. If you want to see a copy of the survey data in spreadsheet form, here is a link (scroll down to the bottom of the document to see the totals):

What’s Been in your Bin Spreadsheet

Fifth graders, take a look at the spreadsheet. Then leave a comment doing one or more of these things:

What is one interesting thing that you notice from the data?
What is one question that the data can answer?
What is one question you think we should include on the survey next time?
Write a math problem based on the data in the spreadsheet.
What is a conclusion that you can draw from the data about people’s recycling habits?

Here are some graphs that show our results:

As part of our unit on recycling, our fifth graders are using a Google Form survey to gather data about the items in their recycle bins at home.  We would like to compare the data that we collect with data about recycling in other parts of the world.

So we are inviting parents, teachers, students, and classes to take a look in their recycle bins (and yes, you can participate even if you DON’T have a recycle bin) and then take a few minutes to fill out the survey below:

Survey: What’s Been in your Bin?

Teachers, you are welcome to have your entire class join in this easy and fun project!  Please email Miss Karen Bosch if you would like a copy of the survey worksheet for your students to take home and/or if you would like permission to view the data on our Google Spreadsheet.  Or you could fill in the survey with your class using your classroom recycle bin.

When I introduced this project to my classes last week, I decided to throw a quick message out via Twitter to see if anyone would fill out the survey while the students were watching in class. After my tweet, I put the spreadsheet up on the Smartboard and crossed my fingers that someone would respond.  To my delight, some data poppped into the spreadsheet within a few minutes, then another, and another!  The students were supposed to be reading a passage on reduce, reuse, and recycle and writing a list of ides for fifth graders, but their attention was really on the screen!  When the responses from Malaysia and Australia popped up, they got so excited they were screaming and jumping up and down!

I had to cover up the screen so that the students could focus on their math assignment, but they could hardly wait to see what our results were at the end of class.  In about an hours time, thanks to over a dozen kind people who retweeted our message, we had almost 90 responses!  One teacher in Missouri even had his entire 7th grade math class take the survey.  The most exciting location was Kazakhstan – one of our students had lived there for several years and was just back in the states and he was thrilled to see this location!  The kids were filled with questions – “Where is Luxembourg?”, “What time is it in South Aftrica?”, and then “I can figure out what time it is in South Africa on my iPod!”  It was one of those lessons that made you love being a teacher!

When I repeated the lesson in the afternoon with another class, we didn’t have the same spectacular results – maybe 5 responses filled in.  But I think the students have gotten the picture of how the internet can let us connect and learn from others from around the world.  A deep thank you to all who filled in the survey or who retweeted!  We are still collecting data, and would especially love some more non-USA responses!

I now am trying to come up with ideas on how to use the data from the Google Spreadsheet with our students.  If anyone has some ideas or things that they’ve done with spreadsheets, could you please leave your ideas in a comment?  Thanks.

Here is a map showing the locations that have responded to our survey:

We have been learning about ecosystems and made food chains using Inspiration.  Here are some fine examples of the students’ work:

Last week several students joined Miss Bosch at recess to take some pictures of the pretty autumn leaves.  Here’s a video featuring their beautiful photographs!

Psalm 138 talks about how God created us and says that we are “wonderfully made.” Now that we have studied about the cells and human body systems, what is the most amazing, surprising,  or  wonderful thing that you learned about how God created your body?

We’ve got spirit yes we do!