Touring the Ocean Bottom

Today in science we studied the features of the bottom of the ocean. It was so interesting to try to visualize underwater volcanoes, mountain ranges and trenches. Here is a computer simulation of what it would look like if all the oceans were drained!

Legend of the Five Kernels

Reading the Legend of the Five Kernels in school today helped us reflect on how fortunate we are. We wrote in our writer's notebooks about all the things we are thankful for. Trying to think outside the box, we considered experiences, times of learning, and influential people in our lives. We even talked about being thankful for the negative things that didn't happen in our lives this year.

It was great to take time to recognize our many blessings. I certainly feel blessed to have such a wonderful class of students. Happy Thanksgiving!

Hatching Aquatic Eggs

These are the eggs in their dormant state. They are magnified 200 times. 

Without the microscope, they looked like brown powder!

These are the hatchlings after 4 days (magnified 100 times.)

During science, we are learning about the conditions for life in aquatic biomes. We are doing an experiment to find out how salinity affects the hatching of aquatic eggs. After setting up solutions of various salinities we have observed the tiny eggs to see if they hatch. We discovered that the solution with 2 spoons of salt seemed to be the optimum environment for these creatures.

When we look at them with a magnifying glass, we only see tiny squiggles zig-zagging back and forth. Using a special microscope called a Proscope, we can watch our hatchlings swim and see more detailed features. It has been fascinating to observe them under magnification!

Next, we will learn more about this mystery creature...what type of animal it is and how it lives in its natural habitat.

Salinity Tests

On Thursday we did an experiment in science to see if we could use our sense of taste to rate 4 solutions in order of salinity. Everyone used cotton swabs to dip in the solutions and taste on their tongues. Some students thought it was "gross!" but many were interested in trying to guess which solution was similar to the salinity of the ocean. They were surprised to learn that the ocean only has a salinity of about 3.5%

Practicing With the Pronunciation Key

One of our activities in reading this week was to practice reading words that have a pronunciation key. The word "estuary" was written like that in our science books. We often find pronunciation keys in dictionary entries. Having that to help makes pronouncing a new word much easier.

Everyone in the class liked the way it resembles a code and had fun trying to spell their names with a pronunciation key.

We especially liked the shirt Christian wore to school that day. It just happened to go along perfectly with our lesson!

Schoolhouse Rock

Parents, do you remember watching these Schoolhouse Rock videos as a child on Saturday mornings? I decided it might be fun to watch this during language arts. We are trying to brush up on the parts of speech. Since we are doing descriptive writing in our writer's notebooks, using adjectives seems even more important lately!

Reflecting Back on First Quarter

I wanted to share a form that your child completed last week as first quarter came to an end. Each student evaluated themselves on important fifth grade behaviors, marking A for something they do "almost always" and N for something they "need to work on". Most students were very objective and truthful about the way they rated themselves.

Next, each student made a goal for the second quarter and a next-step plan for a way to help accomplish their goal. I look forward to sharing your child's self evaluation with you at conference day on Thursday.

It was a wonderful first quarter with a great group of kids. We all look forward to a fabulous second quarter!