Studying Angiosperms

Today I handed each student a knife.  Am I crazy?  Yes, a little bit.  I think you have to be crazy to teach 5th grade.  Anyhow, we are studying angiosperms - plants that have a fruit surrounding their seeds.  Each student received a different fruit with the assignment to cut it in half and study the seed.  After some observational drawing, the students carefully cut it into pieces for everyone to try.

We  ate a lime, lemon, cantaloupe, tomato, cucumber, papaya, mango, pineapple, green pepper, apple, star fruit, cherry, persimmon, quince, grapefruit, pear, pomegranate and kiwi.  The kids were surprised to learn that some foods we think of as vegetables are actually fruits.  If it has a seed inside, it is a fruit!

Native American Research

 Dakota

Shoshoni

Crow

Pawnee

Inuit

Mandan

Cherokee

Iroquois

Apache

Menominee

Nez Perce

Cayuga

Lakota

Mohawk

Seminole

Navajo

Hopi

Today we had our History Fair.  The students have been busy researching different Native American Tribes.  They wrote a detailed report, and created a project to teach others about their tribe.  At our History Fair, parents, other teachers and students came in to take a look at our projects.  The 5th graders did an excellent job talking about what they had learned.

Gymnosperms!

A gymnosperm is a seed plant that keeps its seeds in cones.  We commonly know them as conifers or evergreen trees.  Today the class  took a close look at the 8 gymnosperms that grow wild in Minnesota.  Can you name them?  Give up?  Okay, I will tell  you...  red pine, white pine, jack pine, black spruce, white spruce, balsam fir, white cedar and tamarack.

The kids learned the common traits that will help them identify these conifers in the woods behind their houses.  We will be going outside next week to see if we can find these trees in the forest near the school.

A Policeman with a Teddy Bear?

This isn't an ordinary policeman... and that isn't an ordinary teddy bear.  This is Police Chief Jeff Madsen with Daren the DARE lion.  See?  It isn't even a teddy bear at all.

We started the DARE program today.  Officer Madsen will be coming into our room once a week to talk to the 5th graders about how to make good choices in life.  He does a fantastic job getting to know the kids and teaching them great stuff.  We usually end the year with a field trip to Minneapolis to see a Twins game.  It's going to be a great DARE year!

Studying Plants

Every year I tell myself to get started on our plant unit earlier in the year.  That way I can easily find specimens outside.  It didn't happen again this year. 

Today we studied the non-vascular plants, ferns and mosses.  Fortunately, I saved a hunk of moss from our last school forest visit in November.  It has been in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for nearly 2 months, and it still looked good.  The kids learned about how moss takes water directly into its cells instead of using tubes and roots like most plants do.  They spent some time looking at the moss with magnifiers and microscopes and then did some observational drawing.

Believe it or not, the ferns we used today came from a funeral arrangement.  Usually I have to visit all the florists in our area to try and find some ferns that have spore cases on the backs of their fronds.  Unfortunately, I had to go to a funeral last week.  At the burial service we were all invited to take a flower from the casket bouquet.  When it was my turn, I noticed the ferns amongst the flowers had spore cases on the back.  I eagerly plucked out a few ferns instead.  The dearly departed was a very practical guy and he would have appreciated the fact I was putting them to good use.

We popped open the fern spore cases and took a closer look under microscopes.  The kids were amazed to see the spores looked like shiny, brown bowling balls. 

Next week we start our seed plant unit.  And I most certainly hope I will get my flowers from a florist, not a funeral.