Figuring Out Fractions

My student teacher, Miss Nelson, has been doing a fabulous job so far this year. We continue to work together to plan lessons and run the classroom.  Lately, she has been doing a lot of the planning on her own and I am continually impressed with her fabulous ideas. The point of student teaching is for her to learn from me, but I am feeling rejuvenated as she comes up with new ways do do things.

Here's an example.  Today's math lesson in our teacher's manual was pretty boring.  It had students looking at pictures and doing word problems relating to fractions - halves, fourths and tenths.  Carley took the lesson and turned it into centers.  The kids got to play "basketball" with the garbage can, do a fun game on the Smartboard and work with colorful fraction manipulatives.

She still has 2 months with us and I can't wait to see what she comes up with next!

Jello Cells

My 5th graders are learning about cells in biology class.  We have looked at photos of cells and drawn diagrams.  We watched a short cartoon about the parts of a cell.  One day we made a class model with a human circle for the cell membrane and different students acting out the cell organelles (kids wearing green were the chloroplasts and the bossy kid was the nucleus).   Today we made jello cell models.

Plant cell parts include Mike and Ikes for the Mitochondria, jaw breakers for the nucleus, green licorice for the chloroplasts, large marshmallows for the vacuole and cups for the cell wall.  Technically, we should have a bag inside the cup for a cell membrane, but I have yet to find a bag that fits in the cup.  Each student collects their organelles, and then I squirt green jello cytoplasm into their cup.

Yum!  Actually, it looks really disgusting to my adult taste.  The kids seem to love it, though!

Animal cell parts were similar to the plant cell with the exception of small marshmallows for the vacuoles, no chloroplasts, bags for the cell membrane, and red jello for the cytoplasm.

Yup, more sugar...

Discovering Density

 The sixth graders have been working with density in chemistry class.  We start by learning about mass and volume.  The kids learn how to use a balance scale and a graduated cylinder.  By finding the mass and volume of water and then using the density formula (mass divided by volume), the kids discover that water has a density of 1.0 g/ml.  After they know that information, it is easy to determine if objects will float or sink in water.

I then do four density demonstrations.  The first one involves placing a can of coke and a can of diet coke in a tank of water.  The soda has the same volume, but one floats and one sinks.  (I am not going to reveal which is which, but you can probably figure it out.)  The kids realized that the mass must be different and after a quick check of the scale, we discovered they were correct.

The second demonstration is called "dancing raisins."  If you place raisins in a graduated cylinder full of lemon lime soda, they will dance up and down.  As bubbles collect on their surface, the raisins rise to the top.  Once on the top, the bubbles pop and the raisins sink to the bottom.  It doesn't take long for the kids to figure out that the density of the raisin is changing as it goes up and down.

For the third demonstration we layered fresh water (yellow) on top of salt water (green).  The kids learned that salt water has more stuff (salt) packed into the water and so it has a higher density.

Our final demonstration is my favorite.  Cold water (blue) and hot water (red) are placed in small glass bottles and then turned on their side inside a tank of water.  The cold water sinks to the bottom as it pours out and the hot water floats to the top.  This one is harder to explain, but the kids did a nice job of coming up with some good reasons why hot water has less density than cold water.

We are currently working on a challenge where the 6th graders must figure out how much sand to place in a film canister so it will remain suspended in a tank of water.  

Float a Boat

The sixth graders are studying density in science.  We have learned that the density of water is 1.0 g/ml.  That means anything with a density larger than 1.0 g/ml will sink and smaller will float.  Today each student made a foil boat and floated it to see how many pennies it could hold.  We will talk about buoyancy and which boat shape is the most successful.

Observational Drawing

One of my most favorite fall activities is our Observational Drawing unit.  We do a lot of drawing in life science.  I expect my students to be able to replicate objects pretty accurately.  In order to do this, we must practice.

We start by copying a design.  Then we work on contour drawings of plants.  We spend some time on color blending, and then our final activity is to wander outside, find a plant and draw it as accurately as possible.  The students do an amazing job of this.  They are focused and quiet (usually).  And their drawings are full of details down to the smallest leaf or petal.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Our first writing assignment of the year was to write an essay entitled, "How I Spent My Summer Vacation."  Now before you start thinking, "How original, Mrs. Magner," this assignment had a twist.

 I read the class the book "How I Spent My Summer Vacation" by Mark Teague.  In the book, the boy exaggerates a bit as he shares his summer adventures.  He is captured by cowboys and saves a town from a wild cow stampede (or something like that).  In their writing, my students had to lie.  Nothing in the essays could be true.

We had adventures including aliens, being captured by Mickey Mouse and/or pirates, encounters with famous people, and giant fish being caught on Hill Lake.  These kids sure love to write and I had a blast reading their tall tales.

Phenology

Most of the students in my class live and play in or near the woods.  My goal for science class is for my students to gain an appreciation and knowledge of the nature that is right outside their front doors. In order to accomplish this goal, we spend a lot of time outside in the woods near the school.

A big part of our science is the study of phenology.  Phenology is the study of changes in nature over time due to climate.  We take temperature information each day.  We observe the birds and insects as they migrate south for the winter.  We watch the trees and other plants as they also prepare for the cold months ahead.

John Latimer is a rural mail carrier who has a radio show on KAXE (91.7 fm) in Grand Rapids.  He has been watching phenology for the past 30 years and reports on his findings each Tuesday morning.  We have been a part of his phenology report for at least the last 10 years.  Today John came to our class to talk about phenology and to share what we need to look for this fall.  He also took us out into the woods to see what we can find.  We found insect eggs on a branch, a very friendly spider and we learned some new information about the trees and plants right at the edge of the forest near the playground.

John will be coming back at least two more times this year - one in the winter and one in the spring.  If you want to hear our reports, tune in to KAXE on Tuesday mornings at 6:50 a.m. or listen on line at KAXE.org.