Minnesota Mike

A famous archaeologist came to our classroom yesterday. Was it Indiana Jones? Nope, it was Minnesota Mike!

Mike Magner is an archaeologist for the Minnesota DNR and he came to our room to talk about the history of Minnesota. The 5th graders made a living timeline as they learned about our land thousands of years ago. Mike brought in spears, an atlatl, stone tools, bones, and pottery to show the different ways people have made tools through the years.

This ties right in to our current history unit on the ancient Americans.

Meet Skip

This is Skip. He is going to be spending time on a selected student's desk every now and then. Skip stands for Statue of Kindness, Integrity, and Perseverance. Any student who shows these traits may earn the privilege of taking care of Skip for a day or two. The kids seem really excited about this. It's amazing what a 25 cent garage sale knick-knack can do for motivating a bunch of 5th graders.

Looking Back at Summer

Even though we have only been in school for 3 weeks, summer seems like a distant memory. We took some time last week to design some pretty awesome sunglasses displaying all our summer fun. My class had some great summer experiences including trips to the Mall of America, Grand Marais, and the Apostle Islands.

Officially, summer ends today. The autumnal equinox arrives at 10:09 tonight. I am still hoping the weather will turn a little summer-y in the next few weeks. We have some important plant lessons coming up in science, and a hard frost would wipe out our specimens in the forest.

Adopt A Tree

My fifth and sixth grade science students started their Adopt A Tree project on Friday. It was a beautiful day to be out in the woods by our playground. I have been teaching at Hill City school for 16 years and I still can't believe all the wonderful nature that is literally right outside my classroom door.

Each student selected a tree and did some measuring, observing and collecting. They will continue to visit their trees all through the year, watching for changes throughout the seasons.

Metamorphosis

We have now released 19 butterflies since school has started. We are keeping track of the date, time, and gender of each butterfly as they emerge from their chrysalis. I randomly select a student to name and release each one. This lovely male was released this afternoon. I think his name is Skippy. He kind of looks like a Skippy, doesn't he?

Yesterday we released six butterflies and as we were heading back into the classroom I noticed Mr. Mikles' 7th graders with butterfly nets catching specimens for their zoology class. Those poor butterflies probably didn't get very far. Fortunately the 7th graders were doing catch and release and it probably only delayed the Mexico journey by a few days.

Hopes and Dreams

Each fall I start the year with a Hopes and Dreams activity. We all think back to last year and what went well and what was hard and difficult. The students then choose a goal for the year. The most difficult part of this activity is narrowing the goals down to something do-able. I get a lot of "I want to be better at Math," when I am hoping for "I want to get faster at my math facts." This is a difficult concept for most 5th graders to grasp and I occasionally need to do some one-on-one counseling to get them where they need to be.

We end this activity with an exciting (and rather loud) celebration. We all read our hopes and dreams and celebrate the teamwork that will take place as we work together to reach these goals. Our hopes and dreams are written on stars that go up on a bulletin board in our classroom.

It sounds easy here. In reality, it is exhausting. Or maybe my exhaustion is just from the first three days of school with 18 very busy 10 year olds. I'm going to enjoy this first weekend of the school year!

Looking for Caterpillars

I had a great day meeting all my parents and students at our first day of school conferences today. I just think the first day of school transition is so much easier when we get this one-on-one time to talk about expectations, etc. My voice is sore and my head is aching, but it was a good day.

I spent this evening scouring all the ditches near my house looking for monarch caterpillars. During the summer they are plentiful and we can find them by the dozens, but this time of year it's a little harder. I have over 20 chrysalises (what is the plural for chrysalis?) in my classroom and I let four butterflies go today. I want to show the class all the stages and so caterpillars are a must. I ended up with only three caterpillars on my journeys tonight and they will have to do. I guess we will be in groups of six tomorrow for observation time in science class. We just have to take what we can get from Mother Nature.

Ready or not...here they come!

Tomorrow is the first day of school. As a child, I was a nervous wreck on that first day. As a teacher, I'm not a wreck but I'm always a little bit nervous.

I have been working hard the last two weeks getting ready. The room is clean and organized. My library is (sort of) in alphabetical order. Pencils are sharpened. The desks are clean inside and out. Now those ornery 5th graders are going to come and mess it all up!

I'm just kidding, of course. Those fifth graders are why I do what I do. They will be my life for the next 172 days. Ready or not, here they come!