Classroom Activities, 2008/2009 School Year
Students experiment with nails and wire to create a mini electromagnet.
Week of:
August 25 - Welcome back to G.A.T.E.! Students this week will be introduced to a new vocabulary procedure that will be done weekly. Our W.O.W. (Word Origin of the Week) time will be spent learning both a Latin and Greek root that will enable students to more easily figure out definitions of words and word families. Our math logic game will be Bagels (ask your child what that is!) and our Spanish time will be spent reviewing the sounds of all of the letters, focusing especially on vowels. We will also review some key phrases. Students need to be comfortable with following the Scientific Method when conducting experiments, so this week we will use this method to conduct a chewing gum/sugar experiment. Students will learn to identify the question, create a hypothesis, follow a step-by-step procedure, analyze data, and write conclusions based on evidence. Academic Language of the Discipline for Science - Hypothesis, Data, Compute and Conclusion. Students will also be introduced to the following Language of the Discipline for Art - Abstract Expressionism, Perspective, Horizon Line, and Landscape. We will look at an Expressionist artist's work showcasing landscape painting. Students will follow a step by step procedure to create a sketch that shows perspective.
September 2 - Latin and Greek Roots/Affixes: Cum (Com) and Para. Mad Lib is a part of our Lang. Arts time using Parts of Speech to create a silly story. Science this week is all about Ecosystems! We will play "Name That Word" where students will be introduced to the Language of the Discipline for ecosystems. We will use many of these words in our activity investigating the Six Key Elements of the ecosystem. Students use sets of organism cards that will help them categorize the organism in its correct "element", write, and draw a sketch depicting the organism. Academic Lang. for Science: Biotic, Abiotic, Primary Consumer, Secondary Consumer, Decomposer. Please look at your student's ecosystem accordion book and have them talk to you about what they've learned. Also read their self-evaluation done at the end of the day.
September 8 - Latin and Greek Roots/Affixes: Sonus and Phone. "Cooperate" is a part of our Logic/Language arts activity this week where students must work together to combine clues to solve a problem. We continue our study of ecosystems by using microscopes for our observations. Teams will look at insect parts and at a drop of pond water to discover the plant and animal organisms living there. We will learn the parts of the microscope and the function of each before beginning our observation. After observation, our discussion will focus on how these elements fit into the Six Key Elements of the ecosystem that we learned about last week. Academic Lang. of the Discipline for Science: sketptic, observation, evidence, magnification, wet slide. ;Computer time was spent learning the Geography game, "Cross Country". Fifth graders taught the fourth graders how to maneuver across the United States in their trucks!
September 15 - Latin and Greek Roots/Affixes: Magna and Megus. In Science we will review the Six Key Elements of the Ecosystem and focus on both abiotic and biotic elements within habitats. Students will investigate playground habitats in order to find plant and animal life, and record temperatures in three different areas. They will use math to find the average temperature and as a class we will calculate the average of the entire area investigated. We will share data and discuss the differences in the types of plants and animals that were found. Students will also sketch and diagram their areas. Language of the Discipline for Science: Celsius, Calibrate, Radiation, Reflection, Transpiration. In Computer Lab, students did some editing on their web pages and practiced their keyboarding skills on Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing.
September 22 - Word of the Week from our Wacky Word Book, juxtapose. This week we will focus on art and specific language of the discipline necessary to understand the color spectrum and how colors are combined to create new colors. Lang. of the Disc. - primary colors, secondary colors, tertiary colors, shade, tint, hue. With a partner, students will find the definition in the dictionary then create a "student friendly" definition of their own to add to their foldable. We'll then take what we've learned about creating colors and apply it to our landscape sketches, using first the primary colors, then secondary and tertiary colors. Computer Lab will be spent keyboarding with Mavis Beacon, and looking at a few landscape artist's works in Enchanted Learning. We'll also get to paint these online!
September 29 - Latin and Greek Roots/Affixes: Scribo/Scriptum and Graph. Science this week is a fun focus on the transference of energy through the food chain. Students will build a personal pizza and place each element into the correct category of Producer, Primary Consumer, and Secondary Consumer. Students will be asked to trace the food source through the food chain to see if it can be traced all the way back to a producer. Synthesizing and applying this Big Idea to the transference of energy is the ultimate goal. Language of the Discipline: Properties, Categorize, Consume, Food Chain, Food Web, Energy Cycle. Computer Lab - Students use the Draw capabilities of Microsoft Word to create a graphic organizer for their Energy Pyramid.
October 6 -10 - This will be a week of change for all of us and we're going to spend some time learning how to work cooperatively, understanding our classroom agreements, and inventing something together! Students will work with three different groups of people throughout the day, getting to know one another and following our criteria for brainstorming and working together. I'm looking forward to a great year with my fifth and sixth graders! Latin and Greek Roots/Affixes: populus and demos.
October 13 - 17 - Students complete a series of 8 mini-experiments investigating pH levels of certain liquids. Students will learn to use Litmus strips and an organic product, cabbage juice, to determine acids and bases. Students will use this knowledge on their Hart Park study trip to investigate the health of the pond and river.
October 20 - 24 - Hart Park Study Trip - Students will investigate the producers and consumers that inhabit the pond and river ecosystems at Hart Park. They will conduct experiments to test pH levels and turbidity. They will see and understand the interrelationships between the plant and animal life in the park and how the health of the water sources there are extremely important to them.
October 27 - 31 - Centers - Students will work in four learning centers this week. The Centers will focus on the tradition celebrated in Mexico called Dia de los Muertos. We will learn some Spanish vocabulary specific to this day and construct a poem using this vocabulary. Students will also have the opportunity to explore how matter can change by cooking a traditional Mexican food. A third center will focus on the geography of Mexico, using a compass rose to determine locations of cities. Also in this center, students will continue to practice using the compass rose to understand hemispheres, latitude and longitude lines, and specific locations in the United States by working with large U.S. maps. The fourth center provides an outlet for the students to create a personal work of art by following a specific set of directions. Students will have time after lunch to practice a presentation of either their poetry or their piece of art. They will then present to the class and we will share their delicious Mexican dishes!
November 3-7 - Students get their initial clues to our Environmental Science Mystery, The Mystery of the Dying Fish. Language of the Discipline for this week's study are: autopsy, environment, recurring, factors, synchrony. Students will complete a vocabulary matrix for each week's language of the discipline and then work either as a whole class or in their investigative teams to discover and discuss new clues. This week also has students creating a timeline of the history of the Gray Area and discussing the importance of knowing the history of an area as it relates to current problems. In computer lab, they will begin their mystery journals, adding new information to it each week.
November 10-14 - The Environmental Detectives learn about Chemical and Biological testing used to try and find out what is causing the fish to die in the Gray Area. They will read and research clues in their Chlorine Files, discussing outcomes and finding correlations or discrepancies. Daphnia, the bioindicator used for the biological tests, provides some important information about the Fo River near the waterslide. Also, some cryptic emails from Ken Unballe to an employee has us wondering how trustworthy Ken is! For more information about the mystery and new suspects, click on The Mystery of the Dying Fish link. Lang. of the Discipline: Daphnia, biological, bioindicator, chlorine, phosphates, sediment. Computer Lab - Journal entry to summarize last week's findings for the mystery. Spanish - learning and practicing common nouns.
November 17 - 22 - The Mystery of the Dying Fish: Students investigate the acidity of the bodies of water in the Gray Area by conducting 8 short experiments using pH strips to determine acid levels. Also, in their investigative teams, students will read their Acid Rain File to determine what acid rain is, what causes it, where it's found in the Gray Area, and possible solutions. New suspects are introduced as well. Language of the Discipline: inference, evidence, Nitric Acid, Sulfuric Acid. Computer Lab - mystery journal entry, Logical Journey of the Zoombinis. Math Logic Games: Three in a Row, Logic Links, Pyramid Equations
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