Think Tank- President cont...

All of the students below participated in theis activity. Under that I have written a few things that each student has included as "important" for the President to have.

Eli- 4 lawyers, bowling alley, pool table

Luke- picture of the first president, bathroom

Jake- restaurant, ice cream place, plasma TV

Cameron- pet, bathroom, laptop, slide that turns into stairs

Sammie- bounce house, movie theater, spa

Josie- bathroom, library with books to read, hall for shortcuts, big round table

Mikayla- eagle rug, dining table, desk

Alex- desk, computer, ceiling fan

Ian- cupholders, robots to clean his table

Nathan- pencil sharpener, triangle table

Casey- bathroom, room to stay overnight, hair place (for a girl president)

Here is a picture of Cameron's Oval Office complete with slide!

Here is a picture of Casey's Oval Office from an aerial view.

Below is a picture of all the students who particpated in this activity. Below the picture is one question that each child asked.

Mikayla- When were you born?

Luke- Would you like to be President again?

Eli- How many electoral votes did you win by?

Casey- Why did you want to be President?

Kinsey- Was it fun being President?

Below is a picture of all the students who participated in this task. For each child, I wrote a few things that they included in their "perfect school."

Nathan- Healthy food is free, junk food costs 75 cents.

Aubrey- Breakfast, lunch, and dinner will be served.

Sammie- Books in a baggie so when you press a button it shrinks to fit in your backpack.

Jake- The school would be guarded.

Luke- A smaller janitor room so there is more space.

Casey- Robots to clean the classroom, robots teachers too!

Jack B- A buying lunch robot with a kitchen inside of him- so you don't have to wait in long lines.

Ian- A robot cafe where the robot has 6 arms to do lots at once.

Alex- A secret passage way to get to the principal's office- you drop down into it. If you are bad there are spikes down there.

Thai- A smaller track then we have now.

Eli- Fresh Food and Smoothies!

Alex had a great drawing of his school's floorplan.

The students were able to make a business card in any shape that they wanted. Eli specified on his business card of exactly what he was sworn into doing as President.

Here is a picture of all the children that participated in activity #6- creating a business card.

Fun With Yekttis

In math we met these adorable creatures called Yekttis.
We are sorting them depending on certain attributes.
The shapes of their heads varies from square, triangle, diamond, and hexagon. They have either 1, 2, 3, or 4 antennas. They have either plain eyes or ringed eyes.
We are playing a game called Guess My Rule with these Yekttis. To make it a little more complicated we have played this game with two rules. Some of the Yekttis fit in both of these categories, so we needed an appropriate place to put those cards. We have also learned about the word "outlier" which is applicable when a Yektti fits neither rule.
We thought a Venn Diagram would be a great place to sort this information!
Here are a few pictures from our games today. Notice how some groups are using the labels, which are hard to see, that say rule 1, rule 2, both rules, or outliers.

Owl Pellets

We dissected owl pellets today. Don't worry, we wore gloves to protect our hands from germs. All the kids got their own owl pellet and got to examine all the interesting animal bones that were not able to be digested by the owl. We got out our hand lenses and observed all the neat things we found. Below is a close up of Josie who found the remains of a skull! I took pictures of all the remains the kids found. There is even a picture of the sheet we filled out after we completed the activity.

I enjoyed it when we found bones because I found a skull and I want to do it again. By: Josie

I think this activity was awesome. I found 13 bones. I think the inside of the pellet was really stinky. But all of my bones were really small.

By: Nathan

I like it when we found the bones. It was really stinky.

By: Mikayla

I didnt like it because it smelled like poop and looked like poop!

By: Michael

I liked to see the bones because it looks cool.

By: Alex

I thought it was fun and I want to do it again.

By: Kinsey

I found really cool bones and fur and feathers. It was awesome when Josie found a skull. The activity was the coolest in the world.

By: Luke

I thought it was cool. I want to do it again but with more bones.

By: Trey

I liked doing the pellet activity because we got to see bones inside the body of a wildlife animal.

By: Hailey

I liked this activity very much. I liked it more than anything else..

By: Eli

I loved the owl pellet but it smelled. I would totally do it again! It also looks like a stinky old fossil!

By: Casey

I think it was really cool because it was black. The bones were really small too.

By: Aubrey

I liked when I found all the bones.

By: Jack B.

I didnt like it because it smelled like poopy.

By: Jake

I thought it was gross plain gross it was fun though it was fun! (chuckle, chuckle)

By: Sammie

I thought finding bones was cool.

By: Ryan

Puzzling Squares

Another activity from Tin Man Press was done this week. It was called Puzzling Squares. It was another activity where the kids had to listen and follow directions that were said orally.

This was called Puzzling Squares because at first they didnt realize what the squares were going to turn out to be. In the end, they turned into different types of people. Square 1 was a clown, 2 was a boy with a baseball hat, 3 was a man with a beard, 4 a girl with a bow, and 5 was a robot.

After we were done, the kids were able to add any other additional details that they wanted to the pictures.

Art Poem

For morning work one day this week we worked on an activity called "Art Poem."

They were given a poem that read:
Here is a creature
That has just a grin.
Give it some hair
And some lumps and a chin!

The only part that was drawn in on the picture was the squiggle of the monster's grin. This activity worked with originality and creativity. Here are some that I thought were the most original and creative! As a whole they all did a great job with this activity.

This creature was drawn by Josie.
These creatures were drawn by Ryan and Cameron.

This creature was drawn by Eli.

Election Day 2008

This has been a very exciting time in school. We have been covering America's Government in Social Studies and learning a great deal about the upcoming election.

During class last week we got to fill out our very own voter registration card. Mrs. Anker even brought in her real one for us to see!

Here is a close up of one of the voter registration cards.

The cafeteria was our voting precinct. We came in and the ballots were waiting for us with a pencil. We also made sure that we had privacy during the voting process.

After voting we went to turn in our ballots and collect our "I Voted!" sticker. The fifth grade student council members helped out with the election.

Here we are sporting our "I Voted!" stickers after voting.

Fall Festival

We were able to celebrate our Fall Festival on Halloween. We got to play a fun skeleton game, circulate throughout 5 neat centers, and bounce eyeballs into a cauldron also! We had a great time and can't wait until our next party!
Here are a few pictures of what we did at all the different centers.

We made cute bats using our hands at this center. You can always remember how small our hands used to be!
This center consisted of making slime using corn starch, glue, food coloring, and water. We loved getting our hands dirty!

At this center students created candy necklaces.

At this center the students created scary cookies and got to decorate them!

At this center the students rolled marbles around in paint to create spider webs. The paint even glows in the dark!