5th Grade Book Club

Every year I start our 5th grade book club with this book. It is an oldie but a goodie. The Cay by Theodore Taylor is about a blind boy stranded on an island with an old man and a cat.

Fridays are our discussion days, and this class loves to argue, debate and discuss the book. I sit at a student's desk, participating on equal terms with the kids. We talk about black and white relations, what it would feel like to be blind, and whether or not it is okay for boys to cry. It's powerful stuff.

After we are done with the book we watch the movie. Now this movie is something a former teacher taped off of an After School Special back in 1980. It stars James Earl Jones in what must be one of his first acting jobs. It's pretty bad, and I don't just mean the quality of the tape. The kids love to debate why they left out a part or why a certain scene was filmed in a certain way. I always give my "Never watch a movie before you read the book" speech.

I have looked for a DVD of this movie on the internet and it doesn't seem to exist. I think James Earl Jones had something to do with that...

Phenologist Visits

This week John Latimer visited our science classes. John is a rural mail carrier who also happens to have a radio program on KAXE (91.7) radio in Grand Rapids. His program is called the Phenology Show and is aired every Tuesday morning.

So what is phenology you ask? It is the study of how nature changes as related to climate. It is when my class notices the first snow bunting of the year. Or realizes Hill Lake has frozen over. Every day in science class we keep track of all these events and we report them to John. One of my students gets to be on his radio program reporting our weekly observations.

John came in to talk about how to be a better observer. We all walk through our busy lives without noticing what is going on outside our door. My hope is to help kids become aware of what is happening in nature every day. I also hope to build an appreciation for all things natural. I want the fifth grade boy to think, "What a beautiful bird! I wonder what kind it is?" Not, "There's a bird! I wonder if I can hit it with my bb gun."

Thanks, John, for taking a day off of work to come talk to my class. We really appreciate it.

5th Graders Go High Tech

The fifth graders are studying the 5 kingdoms of life in science class. You know... bacteria, protista, animalia, fungi, and plantae. They have been divided into groups and each group must research and create a Power Point presentation to teach the class about their kingdom.

I have done this project for many years, but the end result was always an old fashioned poster (that is so 1990s). This year I decided to teach them how to use Power Point. Here's a little secret...I have never used Power Point myself. I have played with it a little bit and it seemed kind of easy. Kids these days are so techno-savy that I knew they could figure it out.

I am very pleased to say that with a little trial and error (and a couple of kids who had used it before), the presentations turned out pretty amazing.