Still Building a Budget

Hmm!  What other expenses are there?

This week's addition to the budget project included finding an affordable car and calculating out payments using 3% as a car loan rate and a period of 5 years or 60 months to pay it off.  Thanks to those car loan calculators we were successfully in business.                

                                 

The children used newspapers and websites to determine the monthly loan payment for the car they would be driving.  Some even got to start the process of trying to calculate car insurance.  Many others continued their weekly grocery shopping list.

 They should all be experts when it comes time to find an apartment, house or condominium as a home.  

As the project is growing, the ideas are exploding.  In the end, I hope for the children to have their own ideas of what a budget is and why one is needed to afford life.  This is one of the most basic ways we use math but a challenge as an everyday task.  In the future, I foresee students looking at budget links for any missing expenses and a spreadsheet being created to show that they can afford the lifestyle they want.  

I want to congratulate my class on opening up to some students who just joined the class and sharing their projects so they can start we left off rather than starting from the beginning.  Google Drive has given us a great opportunity to work share, problem solve and grow as learners.  And let me tell you, we are all growing as learners.  

Build a Circuit Simulations

Today in the computer lab we continued our virtual exploration of electricity.  The children visited the PhET Interactive Simulations site where they built circuits, tested insulators and conductors, measured electricity and had a good time with learning.

Can you build a circuits with wires, resistors, batteries, switches and light bulbs?  Try it out here.  Many children discovered how to make fire.  Please ask them about it!

At the same time, students utilized their fifth grade technology skill set by successfully navigating through Gmail and Drive to open their accounts and find a shared link to get to the required website.  At this point they also had to run the program to make it load.  When all was said and done the children were assessed for understanding of URL, tab, and signing out of just their Google accounts rather than the school network.  These students will be ready for any technology the middle school throws them.

Paramecium Under the Microscope

Check out we checked out Monday.  Mr. Musselman came back for another visit.  Monday, he brought some live paramecium for the students to observe under the microscopes. 




Students had already learned about how the microscopes use light and lenses to enlarge and view what is on the stage.  They had even practiced using the different magnification using newspaper last week.   

The children even practiced drawing enlarged grass cells and crystals the week prior.  It is necessary to draw pictures that look like what is under the microscope.  There are big differences between cube shaped sugar particles and curvy live paramecium.  Live items don't stay still either!
In the end, the fifth grade had yet another day of scientific discovery.  Not only did they get to learn how to use a microscope but they saw another way our light learning is applied to scientific tools. 

Not All Things are Equal

Do you remember who the alligator eats?  What is an inequality?  Write one inequality comparing two expressions using the Order of Operations.  Here is an example to start:




Here's what I found over the weekend:

keyboard shortcuts for symbols

Codes for the multiplication and division symbols.  To type an exponent, type the whole number then hit control, shift and = at the same time and let go.  Then press the exponent you want to use.  There it is.  Do it again to turn off this mode.  Wow!

Good Morning Massachusetts

How do You Evaluate

Describe how you use PBEMDAS to evaluate expressions and equations.  This week you need to write one equation that includes 6 of the 7 rules in the order of operations and explain step by step how you solve the problem.  You may use one of the math problems from this week's homework.  Remember to explain where you are in the steps and what you did to solve it.  Put your name at the end.

Hey, Did You HEAR That?

Mr. Musselman came for a visit today to review some grade three sound science and extend our thinking to some harder fifth grade ideas.  Sounds start as vibrations through matter (solid, liquid or gas) as sound waves and our ears take in the sounds for our brains to interpret.

When we push out sounds, we are pushing air particles which are spread apart.  These spread out particles hit each other creating a sound wave.  Waves move more successfully through liquids and solids because the particles are more densely packed so they all hit and bump further out.  The best conductor of sound would be a solid.  

But, where is the proof?  Mr. Musselman used a horn and his own voice to demonstrate how sound can be heard above water even if it is made in the water.  It works but it is muffled: here's why.  Both the instrument and human voices use air to create the push of air molecules to make a sound wave.  The air molecules' spread out push does not have a huge impact on the water's more densely packed molecules causing the muffled sound.  Simply put we are not made to most effectively make sound in water.

Let the Experiments Begin

The Scientific Method

Question

Information

Hypothesis

Experiment

Record and Study Data

Draw a Conclusion

We  began most experiments today.  Plans were complete, measurements, charts and supplies in place and the children were eager to go.  There were paper airplanes flying, balls bouncing and rolling, ice cream melting, paper towels being tested for strength and sponges for absorbency.  The activity was robust and the scientists were bursting with enthusiasm.  Experiments should conclude next week with still more to go.  We still have graphs to make, evidence to explain and conclusions to draw.  Can't wait to see what is on the horizon.

Curiosity Club: BEF Grant put to Good Use

Weighing and Measuring, Oh My

So, the materials have been purchased and distributed.  The children have written their questions and set up a plan and some even put them out to be ready for next week.  Next week comes the real experiments but let's see where they are at right now!


These two ladies will be measuring what different salts do to ice cream in a certain amount of time






This due is building a runway for different size and weight balls.  They want to know how far the fan can blow the balls and which speed will blow the balls the furthest.  This will be allot of measuring Tuesday.

But of course no amount of experiments is complete without the age old question, "Which sponge holds the most water?"  The world may never know.  We can't wait to report out about the actual experiments next week.  Stay tuned for our completed experiments!

Happy Dr. Seuss Day

Our new ELA tradition continues with our Cat in the Hat Scavenger Hunt.  Let's see what the children had to offer for clues in Seussical form!

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Have scattered some clues

We have fluffy blue hair

And pop out of nowhere

Even though we are crazy, clumsy and messy too

Come out of your office, we want to play with you

Go to each place and collect a new clue

The clue you will find; it’s clear what to do

Each item you find you must wear til you’re through

Go to the brooms and mops.

You will be really close to Mr.Marsh.

There is a lot of slarsh.

This person cleans up messes, while doing his task.

Behind the panda 

A place full of quietness 

Next to the stanzas 

A place full of facts 

It always has peacefulness 

You can always relax 

With carts filled
With smarts

Where you can type 

And you can skype 

A place to refill your tea and 

No chance to get stung by a bee

A place to search the web 

You're head can go KABLEB!

It's set on a marathoner's table 

That's attached to a cable

Where dinosaurs take over every year,

There are a lot of seats with numbers,

And possibly Thing one and Thing two will hide in row L and seat 13,

And this is where people gain lots of fear.

It's the place where you use forks

Where you see a lot of windows

And you eat lots of porks

With some one-handed shmimbose

It's under the 5th grade tables 

Where there's probably a lot of clabels

Near the gym, this room is fun.

It is as fun as playing in the sun.

In this room you will hear no sound.

Unless everybody is jumping around.

You will go past a room of things.

And these things are called swings.

You might find this clue in a pit.

Just so you won't throw a fit.

Where sport players are born 

And records are broken 

where there is only one court

and checkers will never be played 

it does not matter if you are short 

all that matters is how good you are at a sport

there is also some very encouraging signs 

go to the place where it says fw a couple of times 

Go to a place where two teachers teach

Don't be surprised if you run into a sneech 

Go and find where storage is kept 

Where music is their only quest 

Where seats sit one by one 

Where music and work gets done 

The kindergarten hallway 

Has a lot of doorways 

Where the rainforest project began 

This classroom collected cans 

This classroom is near the cafeteria 

And it is a media 

This classroom is near the library 

Which has a lot of dairies.

PEMDAS

PEMDAS

Can you write me an equation one way and change the solution by adding or taking out parentheses? Show it both ways with the answers. Work it out step by step and line by line just like we do in class. Make sure to put your first name at the end of your post. Be sure to show EVERY step!

Example:  6*10+4=64                or               6(10+4)=84

                60+4=64                                      6(14)=84