Getting Ready for Christmas

 I love this time of year.  We crank up the Christmas music and the kids quietly make ornaments for our classroom tree.  Okay, maybe it isn't so quiet, but it seems peaceful somehow. 

Kickball ... Minnesota Style

I looked out the window at recess today, and this is what I saw... a bunch of fifth and sixth graders playing kickball in the deep snow.  How they got the ball to roll on that fluffy white stuff, is beyond me.  I love when the kids come in from recess with rosy cheeks and covered in snow.  It just seems so healthy!

Christmas Concert

It was another wonderful Christmas concert at Hill City Elementary School.  I have been teaching here for 19 years and have witnessed 19 of these concerts.  I am always amazed how Mr. Kneeland can pull this together from 25 minutes of practice a day, every other week.  I am also amazed at the talent and courage of these kids.  I know I would never have been able to sing a solo in front of a gym of parents when I was 10 years old.

Kachina Dolls

 The 5th graders have been studying Native American tribes from across the United States.  One of the tribes they have studied is the Hopi.  They read about the Hopi tradition of using kachina dolls to teach their children.  Today we made our own kachinas using paper mache.  Check these out in the downstairs showcase the next time you visit the school.

School Forest in Late Fall

The weather has been unseasonably warm these last few days, so we took another little visit to the school forest to check out what is happening.  All of our adopted trees are leaf-less and we noticed how bare everything seemed.  We could see a lot farther through the trees and a few kids even found some softballs hit into the woods last spring by the girls softball team. 

Soon it will snow and our trips to the forest will be less frequent.  We will go out there a few times in the winter to check out animal tracks and other winter wonders.

Honoring our Veterans

Presentation of Colors

The band plays the National Anthem

Veteran Wayne Weller

Reading our letters to Veterans

Hill City had its first Veterans Day program in many years today.  It was a wonderful program full of remembering and patriotism.  Our community is honored to have many Veterans living among us, and it was nice to have the students show their respect to these important people.

Climbing Mount Everest

David Lien climbed Mount Everest a few years ago and came in to talk to us about his exciting and dangerous adventure.  We learned all about the tremendous effort it takes to prepare for a journey like this.  He showed us photos of the beauty of the mountain and the dangerous conditions he faced.  The class got to try on his gear to get a feel for what it takes to be a mountain climber.

Happy Halloween!

Today was our Halloween party at Hill City School.  Many schools in our area have done away with Halloween, but I guess we are kind of old fashioned. The kids love dressing up in costumes (and having an excuse to eat candy during school).

I'm not sure why, but I always seem to be absent Halloween afternoon.  Today Mrs. Jorgensonsen subbed for me.  That's her in the green pantsuit in the picture above.  The kids said she was a lot of fun, but they had a little trouble understanding her Scandinavian accent.

Happy Halloween everyone!

Jello Cells

Animal Cell

Plant Cell

 My fifth graders are well into our study of cells in biology class.  We have discussed the structures and purposes of both animal and plant cells.  We have looked at cell photos and diagrams. Each student drew diagrams of the cells and labeled all the parts.  Today we made jello cells to make the concepts stick in their brains even better!

The animal cell was made in a plastic bag (cell membrane).  We used a jawbreaker as the nucleus, Mike and Ikes for the mitochondrion, and miniature marshmallows for the vacuoles.  The cytoplasm was red jello squeezed into the cell membrane on top of the organelles.

For the plant cell, we used a plastic cup for the cell wall.  Technically we probably should have lined it with a plastic bag because plant cells also have a cell membrane, but I didn't have enough plastic bags.  Oh well...  The nucleus and mitochondrion were the same as the animal cell.  We used one large marshmallow for the vacuole, green candies for chloroplasts and the cytoplasm was green jello (of course).

Next we are going to look at real plant and animal cells under the high school microscopes.  Hopefully by the end of this unit, these 5th graders will really know their cell parts!

Homecoming Week

It is homecoming week at Hill City School.  Because we are kind of in a unique situation - having kindergarten through 12th grade all in one building - the elementary kids get to participate in homecoming festivities.  Today the seniors put on a pep fest for the elementary students.  The band played the school song, there were cheers, and goofy games like the three-legged race and orange pass relay.  Friday is Purple Pride Day and we even get to attend the first half of the homecoming football game!

Phenomenal Phenologist

John Latimer came in to talk to the kids today.  He has a phenology radio show on 91.7 KAXE radio in Grand Rapids every Tuesday morning. 

What is phenology?  Good question!  Phenology is the study of how our environment changes through the seasons.  In  science class we spend the first 5 minutes talking about the weather and how plants/animals are responding to our climate.  On Mondays, we compile a phenology report of all our observations and one of the 5th graders calls it in to the radio station.

Tune in to 91.7 fm on Tuesday mornings at 6:50 a.m. or Tuesday evenings between 6:00-7:00 to hear John talk about phenology and you might even hear one of the Hill City 5th graders sharing our report.

Nutrition Program

We are so lucky to have Jolene Gansen in our classroom again this year.  Jolene works with the Aitkin County Extension Service and brings us a nutrition lesson each Wednesday for the next 3 weeks.  Today we learned about how much sugar is added to food (a can of pop can have up to 9 teaspoons of sugar!)  We also talked about the amount of fat in foods.  The kids love when she comes because she always brings us good snacks.  Today we had trail mix and juice and last week we had fresh fruit.  Yum!

Music of Morocco

 Today we went to the Reif Center in Grand Rapids for a field trip.  We were treated to some wonderful music and dancing performed by a group from Morocco.  They played ancient instruments and entertained us with swinging hat tassels and great dance moves.

The best part was the audience participation section of the concert.  It started as a dozen volunteers up on stage - playing instruments and wearing the tasseled hats.  The band kept encouraging the kids to come up and dance.  Pretty soon, over half the audience was on the stage rocking out to this wonderful Moroccan music!  One of the men even started a conga line through the seats of the Reif Center.  The kids had a ball!

Observational Drawing

  It was a beautiful day to get out and observe nature!  I expect my 5th graders to do a lot of drawing in science class, so we have been working on improving our observational drawing skills.  It started with drawing an outline of a simple object in the classroom.  We also worked on color blending using our colored pencils.  Today the kids went to the edge of the woods to select a plant to draw and color.  I have some talented artists (and skilled scientists) in my class this year!

Adopt a Tree

 Our first big science project is called Adopt-a-Tree.  Last week each 5th grader went out into the forest and selected a deciduous tree to call his/her own.  They then spent this week studying their trees in detail.  We looked at bark, leaves, and branches.  We measured circumference and estimated height.  We made leaf and bark rubbings. The students learned about alternate and opposite branching.  They learned the scientific names for their trees (and gave them a name of their own - a tree named Fluffy? Sure, why not?!)

We will visit our trees throughout the year to see how they change with the seasons.