Student Posts – May 15, 2009
The students of 5 SJ are at it again, writing posts for our class blog about what is going on in 5 SJ and at NHS!
Civil War Book Groups
We have new book groups and we are so excited. The books are BEHIND REBEL LINES, IRON THUDER, and SOLDIER HEART. We meet with the book groups to see what they thought:
BEHIND REBEL LINES #1:
K 11 says: I like the book. I think it is very interesting.
F 9 says: It’s okay but if there was more excitement in the book I would like it.
BEHIND REBEL LINES #2:
N 14: It’s the best book I have ever read.
H 18: I like the book.
IRON THUNDER:
10 J SAYS: It is pretty good.
P 6 says: it is very very good.
SOLDIERS HEART:
7 G SAYS: It is a good book so far!
Building Big
As it slowly approaches everyone is very busy to prepare and meet requirements for the building big night. The project is very challenging in some parts, everyone at some point feels terrible like they’re not going to finish. At one point I was about to throw my bridge at the wall because the hot glue was not sticking to my materials and so I ended up having to re-do half of the bridge because the gumdrops were too heavy for the sugar cubes to support. In order to make a fun interesting presentation the students of 5th grade need to create something that shows something they learned and that the audience will find entertaining and will teach them something about the science unit we have been studying.
Civil War
We just started a civil war unit. We’re not far in, but I’m already sad about the slavery. I thought they were only 3 fifths of a vote, but in the constitution it says they are 3 fifths of a person. I think that’s wrong. When we read a book about slavery I was really sad and mad for people being like that. The book was about a girl named Nettie. She went out south to see the slaves. People told her American Africans were 3 fifths of a person. She was wondering if they were missing a body part. But when she saw them she noticed none of them were missing something. I wish none of that happened back then.
In civil war we have these new book clubs. The books are Behind Rebel Lines, Iron Thunder and Soldiers Heart. I’m reading Behind Rebel Lines. That’s about a twenty one year old girl who goes into the army impersonating a boy. Iron Thunder is about the first iron boats. Soldiers Heart is about a soldier coming back from the army and says he has a soldier’s heart. So far I like my book although I’m not that far into it.
I’m really excited about our civil war unit. I can’t wait to get further into it. I really want to know more about the under ground railroad.
Ms. J’s Wedding
The title says it all, our wonderful reading, writing and social studies teacher is getting married. All the students are very excited for their teacher and her husband. Ms. J is going to be out for three days around the wedding and is taking a honeymoon in the summer. The students all hope our great teacher has a great life with her new husband Mr. Kumpf.
The wedding will take place on May 24, 2009 and the kids had one reaction to her being gone: unhappiness that she is gone, but joy for her. They are all waiting for her to be happy and get her days off. When asked how stressful it is to plan a wedding Ms. J responded: “Very stressful, it took a year and a half to plan.”
Ms. J has planned a lovely wedding for 140 people. Friends and family will be attending their celebration. Ms. J will be in an ivory wedding dress with her hair up. The students can’t wait to see their newly named teacher Mrs. Kumpf.
Finishing Lewis & Clark
During socials studies we have been wrapping up our studies of Lewis and Clark. We have been working on our final map as well. The final map was recording Lewis and Clarks trail across the west. We also labeled the important events and different camps. We had to color in all the states that were ratified in 1806. The Rocky Mountains and the Great Plains also had to be labeled. Lewis and Clark went up the Missouri until they had to decide if they would go north on the Missouri or south down the yellow Snake River. They ended up staying on the Missouri, which was a bad move because of the Rocky Mountains. So on the way back they went on the Yellowstone. They arrived back at the Mississippi River two and a half years later.
Fractions, Decimals & Percents
This week, 5SJ started their study of fractions, decimals and percents. They
started off with a paper for each table to list the places we saw fractions, decimals and percents. Some places where we saw decimals were in gas prices and batting averages, and they fractions on their spelling tests and time. They also saw percents in interest rates, humidity and stocks. For the next two days, the students played decimal games. One was “Smaller To Larger”. These games helped them practice finding which decimal is larger compared to another. Today, they had fun working with fractions, decimals and percents in sports stats. Some looked at team winning percentages and others looked at scoring or batting averages. They then filled out a sheet of the decimal, percent and fraction for the wins or goals. Here are some student opinions:
Laptop 4 says: “Fractions, decimals and percents are awesome!”
Laptop 7 says: “They are great!”
Laptop 18 says: “They are easy peasy.”
Laptop 19 says: “They’re really fun.”
Building Big
Recently, all of us 5SJers (as we like to call it) have been working our butts off to prepare for a giant event known as Building Big night. What we were supposed to do, is to conduct a lab that can teach us something about what the forces can do to a structure or how buildings are effected by them. We were not assigned a question each, but we all had to independently think of a question, write a procedure and materials list. That is just the lab prep. We also had to do evey thing else that we normally do in a lab, just we have to put it on a poster board and in final neat, typed form that we have to be ready to present. Something else that we have to do is to think of something to do with our audience that is interactive. It’s a lot of work for just a week and 4 days!
All of us are under pressure but on BB night, we will all be relieved. BB night is where we present all of our labs and share them with YOU! We are all excited to wrap up Building Big.
What is Inferring?
To be a good reader, you must infer, but do we dare ask ourselves the questions: What is inferring? How do you infer? What tools do readers use to infer? What does a reader do while inferring?
I have the answers,
1. Inferring is when you have a gap of understanding and you take some of the text and back round knowledge of maybe something that happened to the character and also happened to you, and you mix them to fill the gap of understanding.
2. You would infer by paying close attention to what your reading, and you may read text that makes you think of something that happened to you. Then you fill in the gap of missing understanding and you fill it with understanding.
3. A reader would use the following to infer: a piece of text, your mind, and background knowledge.
4. While inferring a reader might: look out a window, or stare into blank space.
Now those are things that good readers will do. So if you are not doing these things listed (inferring) than you should start doing the things listed! (inferring) From Laptop # 19
Building Big Independent Lab
I don’t know about other people in 5sj, but I am doing well with my plastic and cardboard skyscraper! I haven’t finished the skyscraper but I plan to finish and test tonight. I have heard the ideas of other people’s structures and I think we all have a great idea!! I’m following my sketch and idea and I’m always trying to do what I have on the homework sheet and with all of your hard work you probably have too! I would like to just say 5sj is doing a great job with their structure ideas and hopefully we are all having fun… I know I am. I think our two teachers had a good plan coming up with all these building big projects because they are a lot of fun and we have learned a lot from the dome lab to the independent lab! I’ve learned about tension, a pulling force, compression, a pushing force, torsion, a twisting force, and shear, a sliding force we have also learned about live loads and dead loads and following directions (I’m talking about the dome lab… me and my partner messed up twice in three steps and we almost messed up our whole structure)! This is also happening in the independent lab, the forces have made my skyscraper pretty lopsided on one side, hopefully I’ll be able to fix it!
Again everyone has a great plan and is doing a great job!! Good luck on your projects we all have a great plan for our structures to hopefully withstand whatever test we are doing for our structure. Good luck 5sjers!
Building Big Lab
As Tuesday may 19th approaches 5Sjers have been keeping busy working on their building big independent labs! For this project 5Sjers were able to pick a dome, skyscraper or bridge to build out of any material. Each child was assigned to come up with a question of there own choice, for example some questions were; if I built three domes out of paper mache with a different amount of layers each which dome would hold the most weight? Another question was; if I built a bridge out of candy how much weight would it hold and how would the forces affect the bridge?
It has been a very stressful week for all of the kids in 5SJ to write an hypothesis, build, and test, do observations plus writing our conclusion. After finalizing all of the parts of our lab in came the creative part to put to everything onto a poster! But then there was an even more creative and challenging part when presenting we had to make an idea of what we learned from this experience and make up an activity for our audience to do! This building big lab has been an exciting experience for all of the 5SJers and we all cant wait for Tuesday!
Laptop #6
Mr. Caron CHALLENGE
This week we had a Mr. Caron CHALLENGE. It was called the Mohawk walk. There was a cable that was attached two trees that were parallel. Then there were two ropes hanging down in the middle above the cable. While one person was walking across the cable there were two people on either side of the person that was on the cable and were spotting that person. We made a buddy system where two people on the cable would help each other get across to the tree on the other side. After we completed the challenge we got to go on a zip line across a mud pit. That Mr. Caron challenge was very fun.
P16
looking forward to grade 6….
May 15, 2009
Dear 5th Grade Parents,
The 6th Grade Team is looking ahead to the coming fall and our annual week at Merrowvista Environmental School. We will go going to Merrowvista during the first FULL week of school, September 14 – 18. The week spent in Tuftonboro is an integrated part of our curriculum during the 1st Trimester and we look forward to getting to know our new students. To help prepare students (as well as their parents) we are hosting an informational hour on Tuesday, May 26 at 6:00 in the Music Room at North Hampton School. At this time a representative from Merrowvista will share some background information about the program as well as answer any questions.
We know this is a busy time of year but hope that you will be able to join us. Feel free to bring your almost 6th grader along!
Sincerely,
Grade Six Team
THANK YOU AND AN INVITATION
THANK YOU to those of you who gave input through the recent Guiding Beliefs questionnaire. This was an important first step in our process of identifying what beliefs should guide the work that all of us do in our school.
A small group worked to crystallize some key concepts from your input.
As our next step in this critical work, YOU ARE INVITED to participate in one of the public forums that will use the draft statements to discuss and generate our GUIDING BELIEFS. We invite Parents and the Community-at-large to join Staff and School Board members in this important work to ensure that we are honoring the values that are shared by all stakeholders in the education of the children of our community.
Please give us one hour in either of the two options noted below.
Daytime Forum: Friday, May 22 from 9:30 – 10:30 a.m.
Evening Forum: Tuesday, May 26 from 7:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Subsequent to these forums, input will again be given to the writing team to craft the final North Hampton School’s Guiding Belief Statements. Final Approval of the Guiding Beliefs will include Council, Staff and School Board review.
We need your thoughts, we need your feelings, we need your voice.
PLEASE COME!
Childcare can be available during either session. Please notify Jan Scipione if you are in need of childcare. jscipione@sau21.org
Rapidly Approaching End of the Year!
Happy Spring and quickly approaching summer to all! Please check the Friday Folders today for an end of the year calendar of upcoming events in grade 5. We recognize that everyone’s schedules get a little crazy once the nice weather comes. We will be reviewing this calendar in much greater detail with the students once Building Big Night has occurred (Tuesday, May 19th, 6:30 – 7:30 pm – all students are expected to attend for the full hour!). Please contact us should you have any specific questions although more details will be coming home next week! Thanks for all your continued support.
Student Blog Posts – April 24, 2009
Skyscraper Lab!
This week 5SJers have been extremely busy! For example, we had a million little and big things to do on this week before vacation. The one I chose to write about is our skyscraper lab that took place on Wednesday and Thursday. To get ready for this lab we first started out small with the building big video called Buildig Big: Skyscrapers. This video gave a ton of creative ideas to almost everyone in the class. In this lab we were all assigned to only use recycled materials, which was a challenge to many of us. When the partner pairs had finished discussing about what they wanted their skyscraper to look like, the next day it was time to build! The height of the skyscrapers ran from two feet all of the way to six feet tall! After all of the tests were finished most skyscrapers made it through without a scratch or fall!
Field Trip To Pease
After an awesome vacation, we will be going on a field trip to Pease International Trade Port/ Air force Base. We are going to go in a government issue Hurricane Hunting plane. The organization that controls the program is called NOAA (National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration). The best part is at the end of the tour we get to go for ice cream! We are very excited!
Vacation!!!!!!!!
As everyone in North Hampton knows, it is the students’ favorite time … vacation! Our last week here at school has been very engaging to keep our minds off of the upcoming vacation. Despite the teachers’ best efforts… nobody can hide their excitement or stop talking about it. Even our teachers seem to be happy about their week off. The students are talking about fun activities such as trips and sleepovers at friends.
Vacation sadly ends on May 4th even if we don’t want it to. Some plans of students are listed here:
-Parties
-Sleepovers
-Shopping
-Friends coming over (or going to them)
-Trips
-Playing outside
Everyone is very happy about his or her plans and even if people don’t now what they are doing everyone will be happy for the time to relax.
Laptop 14
Bold Journey:
Lewis & Clark Read Aloud
This week the class started a new Historical Fiction book called Bold Journey: West With Lewis And Clark Journey, by Charles Bohner. My opinion regarding this book is that it is phenomenal because it feels like it is taking you back in time to 1804. The text is written from a 16 year old boy’s perspective. His name is Hugh McNeal and he was on Lewis and Clarks Corps of Discovery. We are excited to see what happens next in his Journey.
The Skyscraper Challenge
This week we started learning about skyscrapers. First we watched a movie, Building Big: Sky Scrapers. We learned about early skyscrapers and specific buildings like the Petronas Towers. After we had gotten information on the skyscrapers we went on to the recycled skyscraper lab. First, we were given our partners and we discussed the materials, which had to be recycled, that we would choose. We all used materials like tin cans, plastic water bottles, cardboard boxes, straws, pins, string and tape. Then when we came in the next day with our labs prepped and our materials gathered we started building our skyscrapers. Some skyscrapers were successful and stood up to a fan on high. Others didn’t and either fell or broke apart.
Here is what the Students have to say:
Laptop #14: I thought the skyscraper lab was really fun.
Laptop #4: I liked building and testing the skyscraper.
Laptop #13: I liked the skyscraper lab.
Laptop #5: I liked how our structure was stable and didn’t fall down.
So as you can see all the students loved the Skyscraper challenge and Building Big.
Laptop #11
Thanks to all the kids for your great posts about life in 5 SJ! Keep them coming! 
STUDENT POSTS – 4/17/09!
Save The Earth!
5SJ students have been very busy this week! On Wednesday we have our weekly art class! Since Earth day is coming soon on April 22nd, we read all of these quotes about the world and what might happen to it. For example these quotes were based on chemicals like CO2 and toxins. So now to the real assignment, 5SJ’s assignment was to pick one out of the six quotes to draw or paint. Some people’s pictures were things like equations on what would happen to the earth or even the earth with mass chaos. This assignment was to let your imagination run wild like drawing two roads, one side the world as it is today and the other the world after global warming takes over. These pictures had signs saying “No More CO2” or “Don’t let the world slip away from us!” On Monday before April 22nd our art teacher will hang everybody’s work on the wall just to show how much NHS appreciates the Earth!!!
Reading all around!
Reading as always is changing and today is no exception. As well as working with our own independent books and our read aloud The Graveyard Book we are starting another read aloud book for Social Studies. The book is about Lewis and Clarks journey west.
As we do all that we are going to “Capture our Inferences.” This will all follow along with our study of inferring. We write down the title of the book or poem and the inference and put it in the net. When we capture sixty we will get a reward.
Also even if you picture reading as sitting in a chair with a book 5sj will prove otherwise. Everyone has seen the beautiful weather and our wonderful reading teacher has promised to bring us outside to read in and enjoy the sun. Students in 5sj seem excited and hope the sun will last. Below are some reviews of reading.
Laptop #11 says: Reading is fun. I like inferring.
Laptop #3 says: We should read outside more often.
Laptop #2 says: I really like to read outside.
Laptop #17 says: I have enjoyed reading this year.
Laptop #9 says: I think inferring is awesome I love it.
Laptop #18 says: Poetry has been the best so far.
Laptop #19 says: inferring is awesome.
Laptop #7 says: I really like inferring.
As anyone can see the students are crazy for reading, and more interested then ever and as you can see from their comments we are on to our 5th reading documentation. Poetry! Everyone is really working hard and catching ever inference they get. I can’t wait to see what the amazing students of 5sj will accomplish next.
From Laptop # 14
Lewis and Clark
Right now, we are learning what had happened to cause the exciting Lewis and Clark Expedition. The Louisiana Purchase, which was the land they explored, was bought for only 5 cents an acre! We had reading packets and questions earlier in the week, and then filled out charts with what we know and what we want to know. My favorite thing that I have learned is that. Jefferson didn’t just want more land, but wanted to find a waterway across the U.S. Yesterday, our teacher did a dramatic representation of the sending of the real letters between Thomas Jefferson, Lewis, and Clark. Since she had no one to help her, she had nametags for each of the people she was playing. That was really fun. After that, we started looking at letters (not the actual, of course) that Lewis, Clark, and President Jefferson were sending before the expedition.
Next week, we will get into the real exploration part of the study. I can’t wait!
The Bridge Lab
The past few weeks we have been working on Building Big! This week we did bridges. We had materials like straws and sewing pins and we had to figure out how to connect them and how to make a bridge with them. We learned about different types of bridges like Arch, Truss, Suspension, post and beam, cable-stayed or beam bridges. We learned this in packets and the Building Big: Bridges Video. For this lab we had to make a diagram of a bridge we wanted to build and then we were assigned partners. Once we had our partners we had to look at the bridges we designed and combine them or decide which one we would use. Once we had decided which bridge we would use we had to set two chairs 18” apart, this would be our span. Then we got our materials and started pinning straws together with sewing pins. It was hard to get the pins through the straws and many of us got pocked multiple times. We had to make a road way and some of us built trusses and others built towers to support cables. Once the bridge was built we tested it by putting baseballs or partially full paint bottles on it and we identified places where tension, compression and maybe torsion showed. We had a minimum of four diagrams and we had to answer questions for each diagram. It was awesome.
Lewis and Clark
This past week our class just wrapped up our government study and moved on to Lewis and Clark. This study started off with the Louisiana Purchase, which cost more than 15 million dollars. Thomas Jefferson (who was president) wanted more people to be farmers so if we got in another war we wouldn’t have to buy food from other countries. They bought this land without knowing anything about it, which is where Lewis and Clark come in. The purpose of the journey was to explore the rivers and see if they would connect to make a trading route across the country to the Pacific Ocean. Their journey was three years long from 1803 to 1806. This journey was important to our nation because now we have now a huge amount of land all thanks to the Louisiana Purchase.
Laptop#3
The Graveyard Book
Wow, what a book with big surprises and weird things like living in a graveyard! Last month we started the Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. Here is what laptop #17 needs to say about it:
“ Bod is an amazing person because he has gone through a lot of things like dealing with having to live with a ghost family and having to go to school without anyone noticing him. Also, the man Jack, who killed his real blood related family is still out to get Bod (Nobody Owens, Bod is a nick name.)”
Here is laptop #9 has to say about this book:
“ I think that Bod is a neat character. He isn’t the really cool guy at his school but at the graveyard he is the cool guy.
Laptop #5 said:
“ I think that the graveyard book is interesting at some points. I like it”
As we said, wow, what a great book.
DOME LABS!
Students in 5SJ recently began the BUILDING BIG science unit with the study and construction of our first structure, the geodesic dome. To gain background knowledge, students first explored the strength of a triangle versus the strength of a square. Working with straws and paper clips, students were challenged to apply force, like compression and tension, observe and record their findings before reinforcing the weaker of the two structures with limited supplies. This prepared them for the challenge of working with triangles to create geodesic domes.
Part of this unit introduces students to the challenge of recording key information while viewing a video. The videos were created by PBS Boston and are narrated by David Macauley, the architect turned writer of books such as Castle, The Way Things Work, and Black and White. It traces the history of each structure, with photos of the structures from all over the world. With the domes, we learned about the creation of astro-turf to solve a blinding problem for baseball players in the Houston Astrodome.
The creation of the small dome allowed students to apply their recently gained knowledge of isosceles and equilateral triangles as well as following very specific, detailed, instructions. In the end the test of strength yielded several domes that could support over 5 pounds!
Fraction Games for 5 SJ
Hi to all 5 SJer’s and guests! The links below will take you websites with games to review, practice and build your fraction skills!
Equivalent Fractions:
http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/games/equivalentfractions/
Fraction Track:
http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivityDetail.aspx?ID=18
Pizza Parlor Fractions:
http://yuri2.com/474/FrontStore.swf
Have fun and learn lots
Student Posts – 3/27/09
MATH:
Our math studies have come a long way since the beginning of the year! First, we started with the basics of skip counting and prime factorization. Then we moved to multiplication and division. But now we are exploring a higher level of math, fractions! In order to do this our teacher needed to know how comfortable with fractions so we took a fractions pre-assessment. In this packet of work the questions involved turning mixed numbers into improper fractions and vise versa. This fractions unit sounds like a blast but with a few challenges in the middle!
Laptop #6
Spirit Week
By: Laptop 5
Spirit Week was so much fun. It started from p.j. day and went all the way to show your school spirit day! Today is the last day of spirit week and I can’t wait until the assembly today. I’ve had a lot of fun this week dressing up for the occasions and making the poster I think we have a great chance of winning, we worked so hard! I hope many people have had fun this week showing their school spirit. I can tell a lot of you have… I’ve seen people wearing yellow and green clothes, green and yellow face paint and some people dying their hair green and yellow! Showing our school spirit in one week is hard but fun. I love dressing up every year as mostly something different. In one week people have been laughing and having a good time showing their school spirit, I hope you are one of those people. I know I am!
WEATHER WATCHING!
Happy Spring! This week we officially wrapped our study of weather by watching the final i-movie forecasts created by the meteorologists of 5- SJ! We are thrilled to share how you to can watch:
http://web.me.com/nhs3/NHS_Technology/NHS_Technology.html
OR here is a direct link to the movies:
http://web.me.com/nhs3/NHS_Technology/5th_Grade_Weather_Movies/5th_Grade_Weather_Movies.html
Just click on the students weather forecaster names and you’ll see a “play bar” to start the movie!
Term 2 Report cards went home today in the Friday Folders. We sent home reminders of conference times, that are taking place next week. Please check your child’s Friday Folder for your confirmation time. Also, their final weather forecast grades were placed inside the Friday Folders (some inside the actual report card folders) so check them out, sign them please and have them returned to school on Monday.
This week we also did lots of work with finding the area of triangles with the geoboards: This required use of rubber bands. We celebrated being able to successfully use rubber bands as a genuine learning tool for two extended math periods this week by having our first 5SJ Rubber Band Shooting Contest. We are hoping to have another – when it is warmer outside.
Hope all enjoy an excellent first weekend of spring! We are looking forward to seeing you all next week.
