Spel-ling and Book Report Presentations

What full day we had today! We started out with Book Report Presentations and then we worked on math review, history review, and right into our spelling bee in class. We finished off the day with a study of Alexander Fleming!

Reminders: Goal sheets for fourth quarter need to be signed by parents!
                    Report card envelopes need a signature and need to be returned!
                    History Test tomorrow!
                    Mexican/Latin American/Hispanic Lunch Friday at 12:00
                    Permission slips for Noetic Math Challenge need to be returned.
                    April 12th - Research Paper Due!

top 3 spellers: Will, Ian, and Sam! April 12th they will compete again!

Jonah as DRACULA!

EEEEWWWWW!

Posting photos today of our lovely fungi growth on our purple table...we will be growing it until after the break. The bacteria growth, however, will have to be done by Friday or else we'll all return to a classroom so smelly that we won't be able to stand the room for our last eight weeks. Today we "spread" a nasty disease around the room as we reviewed communicable and non-communicable diseases. We then viewed our hands under black light and saw the evidence. We then traveled to the bathrooms and washed our hands for an entire 60 seconds with soap and water. We viewed our hands once again and the "disease" still remained, just not as much. We then used Germ X and viewed our hands once again....there was less disease, but it was still there....proving that we need to scrub, and sometimes wash our hands more than once in order to get rid of spreadable germs and disease. Hopefully the scholars will think twice before eating without washing their hands!

Scholars should be continuing to write their poetry pieces, work on their research papers, and tomorrow our book report projects are due. Polling the class today, 80% of students had already completed the project.....YAY!!!!! They are learning to get things done ahead of time, and relieving themselves of much unneeded pressure! We will be giving book report presentations starting at 8:30 tomorrow morning if parents would like to join us.

Tomorrow afternoon, right after lunch we will be running our classroom spelling bee. The Scripps bee will leave us with three top spellers in the class. Those spellers will have a packet to take home over the break and look over the words. Those three students will then participate in the School Wide Bee on the 12th of April right after school. Exciting times!

Thursday we will have our history test, and Friday our Latin American Luncheon in our classroom at noon. This will make for a great start to our break!

bacteria growth in a pint of buttermilk......yum!

Mold growth, tomato soup, plain, with dirt, with dust from the gym floor....

Sliding into the Home Stretch!

Break is so close we can all feel it! There are many things to cover this week, math test, history test, plenty of poetry, and onomatopoeia to go around....BUT we will finish off the week with report cards and BREAK! Report cards will start coming home on Wednesday. Thank you for returning the envelope signed.

Students should be working on their research papers that are due on April 12th. Break should be a break, and it would be a shame if poor time management has scholars working over break to finish their papers. They will have that last week when we return, but we will be starting a number of new units AND working on review packets for the NWEA. It would behoove students to be working this week.

Poetry packets will be due on Friday. They can be handed in completed on Thursday for those students who are going to be be absent on Friday due to vacations.

This week, Wednesday we will run the first round of the Scripps Spelling Bee in our classroom. Our winners will then have packets that they can take home and study over break to be a part of the school wide Bee when we return.

In science we have been studying microorganisms, and started growing some mold in our classroom last week. Today we had some significant growth. Tomorrow I will take some photos and post them. We are also growing bacteria in a carton of buttermilk that is sitting on our table. Hopefully it will not expand and explode at night when no one is in school and greet us with a terrible smell some morning! We will be disposing of it before break!

In history we have been studying the Latin American Revolution. We would love to celebrate the end of the unit with a Latin/Hispanic lunch on Friday. If your student wants to bring in some sort of Latin/Hispanic food to share remember to cancel your student's lunch. We will enjoy our lunch in our classroom and be cleaned up and ready to go by 1:00.

We will be working on a number of items this week to prepare for our few weeks left in the fourth quarter. Tomorrow we will be brainstorming and writing up ideas for games for the older kids, 4, 5, and 6 grade students for our field day. We will then present them to Coach to consider. We will also be working on preparing to write our moral codes during the fourth quarter. We actually have about 8 weeks left and students will be adding to their moral code and have eight standards that each of them develop for themselves. Once they are finished they will be putting them on presentation paper, and I will laminate them. They can hang them in their rooms for the summer, but we size them purposely to place inside their lockers in their new "home". Their own code is written in light of the 6 level learners that we have been talking about since the first day of school, and our foundation stones. Each one will be unique to each individual and what he/she finds to be important and mandatory in order to walk through the days of Jr. High and High School with high standards and living a life of no regrets. This last quarter always seems to be a very special time for our scholars. A time of reflection and growth will help these students to know what they believe, and be able to stand by their convictions. That is our goal at GFA; not simply that students obey and succeed while they are in our building, but that we can send them out and they will continue to do their best and live with integrity!

Congratulations Jared and McKenna....Ice Cream all Around!

Congratulations to both Jared and McKenna who competed in the Jr. Ritchey Science Fair at Weber State University yesterday. Both received honorable mentions, $1000 scholarships to Westminster, and Jared received the Excellence in Engineering Award. Well done both of you!!!!

Today we dug into our microbes unit and began learning about immunology. We are currently studying fungi, molds, bacteria and viruses. Don't be surprised if students start snooping around in your fridge looking for specimens! :)  While studying today we learned about the microbes in ice cream....after we cleaned our desks with Clorox we marched across the street to celebrate Jared and McKenna and have ice cream together.

Scholars are writing poetry this week and next week. They will not have essays due. BUT they should be working on their term research paper which will be due upon return of spring break. They have been working with Mrs. Pockrus learning the MLA style and proper citations. They should be writing at this point and asking their final questions so they can type them either before or over the break.

The math test that was originally scheduled for next Thursday has been moved to Tuesday, and the history test on the Latin American Revolution will be Thursday. The quarter ends this week and I will be working on report cards to go home with scholars Friday, or early next week. Please send the envelope back once again.

The Grandiloquent Guardians Forensics Team will be having a Nationals Trip Meeting on Thursday the 28th right after practice. Scholars will be notified this week at practice. Please plan to attend if you have a scholar who will be participating in Nationals.

On to fourth quarter! Wow times flies!

National Pi Day and Forensics

Thursday was a full day as we worked toward our Forensics Tournament at the end of the day and continued to study circles in math. I purposely put the study of circles in March each year just as an excuse for allowing my students to eat pie in class! Students had to figure the circumference of the four pies we had to choose from. They were cherry, dutch apple, banana cream, and pecan. Everyone got to enjoy the pie while drawing their pie and working out their math on the paper. Hopefully now we have concreted in the whole C=(Pi)D and can move onto area next week. It was just the little extra boost of sugar we needed before lunch! :)

Pi Day!

The afternoon was full of finishing touches on congress speeches and getting ready for the tournament. Unfortunately for all of us, one of our fifth grade families had a tragedy during the day and that greatly effected the fifth graders coming to observe. We had a few sixth grade parents through, so it was a positive exercise for the competitors. Thank you to those of you who came out to watch.

Braylee sponsoring the bill

Orders of the day

questions

Neg speech

more questions

questions....

Neg speech

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! Spring has sprung...at least till next Thursday!

No Bones About It!

"Bones, bones, bones...make no bones about it. Bones, bones, everybody needs bones, just can't live without it!"

Today was our bone dissection. We have been bridging and scaffolding between our circulation and lymphatic unit to our immunity and disease unit. Dissection of the bone brings to life the material we have studied that has to do with blood cell creation and platelets. Students were presented with bovine femur specimens and learned about the periosteum, compact bone, cancellous bone, marrow, diaphysis, and the epiphysis, as well as cleaning out the medullary cavity. They peeled the periosteum, dug out the marrow, formed it into balls, and observed the bones and vessels. We will begin talking about B cells and T cells in disease when we return next week.

Tomorrow is the exhibition forensics match. Any scholar is invited to watch and participate in Student Congress. If students participate in events they will gain NJFL points. We will be in the cafe from 3:30 to 5:30. All parents and siblings are invited to attend, and there will be concessions. Before each event I will explain what it is that the crowd will be watching and how the event is judged. There will be three judges and competitors will receive their ballots after break. There will be awards at the end.

We have a cumulative spelling and vocabulary test tomorrow morning. We will be spending the afternoon getting ready for the tournament. Have a great three day weekend!

Our scholars ROCK!

determining the age of our bovines

peeling periosteum

cutting fat out of the way

defining parts

investigating cartilage and bone

scraping the epiphysis

Look Ma! :)

Preparing to extract marrow

Bella showing her team's periosteum

peeling periosteum

observing vessels

scooping out bone marrow

Isaac found some great bone fragments

Evelyn the surgeon

cleaning out the medullary cavity

 

Time to Play Catch Up!

Whoa! A week since this blog was updated....I do believe that's the longest it has ever gone! Needless to say if you weren't already aware, our newest family addition showed up last week after spending a number of nights back and forth from the hospital. He is a happy, healthy baby, and we are enjoying holding and rocking this precious little gift.

Understanding that, I appreciate your patience as I try to catch up. We are moving right along on our work in the suite, since it was already prepared ahead of time...what takes the time is all the catch up grading! I will hopefully be back on track by the end of the week.
We had an assembly last Friday and celebrated both Addison and Evie as they were presented with awards for Cooperation. Congratulations Ladies!
The Science Fair winners were also acknowledged at the assembly and we will be getting ready for the competition at Weber this coming week.

So far we have planned the following for the month of March:

7th - History Test
8th - essay, spelling test, vocab test
11th - Math Test
13th - Science Test
14th - Exhibition match for Forensics after school 3:30 - 5:30
15th -  NO SCHOOL :)
18th - Jr. Ritchey Science Fair - Weber State  Animal Farm Resume Due
19th - Latin Test
22nd - spelling test, vocab test
26th - Math Test
27th - Book Report Projects Due
28th - History Test
29th - spelling test, vocab test, Poetry Packet Due

These dates are of course subject to change....but we will try for this for now....
enjoy the photos...
The class was physically reenacting blood cells and moving through the body areas in order of flow....thus, the pictures of students traveling through class. Evie has, by far, received the BEST package of goodies from the college where she sent her business letter.

Science Fair Winners

Evie and her 'stash' :)

Two Cooperative Ladies! :)

First to the right side of the heart...

lungs, left side, small intestine, body cells, and then kidneys

dropping off waste!