Camp Bournedale Memories

Camp Bournedale: Fifth Grade Trip

For those of you who do not know just how amazing Camp Bournedale is, let us show you just how special, educational, fun and friendship building it can be.  Our adventures begin with three 'classes'.  Our journey brought us onto the Lobster Tales in Pymouth Harbor.  We saw the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock on our way out.  But our physical learning began with hauling full lobster traps out of the water.  We learned the differences between boy and girl crabs and lobsters.  We saw babies still in their mothers and exactly what it takes for a lobster to be a keeper.  Not to mention the spectacular dance done by one of our very own fifth graders.  Shhhh, don't tell anyone but he's about to loose an arm to a giant lobster.

Next stop, Project Adventure! How do you quickly establish classroom community, friendship, trust and mutual respect for one another?  Put children in the position to need one another!  Children had to work together to solve problems, make plans and act on them.  First, how do we get someone over the Meatgrinder? Next, who goes first?  Then, who should go last?  Why should we do it that way?  Let's not forget that we need to get Mrs. Lynch and Mrs. Logan over it to.  Check out these problem solvers!

And, let's not forget our famous surgical skills for the shark dissection.  From beginning to end, we found the sex of the shark, the stomach, intestines, lungs and more.  All students had the opportunity to cut, t open and check out just what makes these guys work.  Did you know that sharks wouldn't be able to swim as fast backwards as they do forwards?  They have scales on their skin that point to the back making them more sleek going forward!

Thanks for the Great Memories Camp Bournedale!

Francis Wyman Garden, Seeds and Master Gardener Peter Coppola

What's Going on with that Garden Back There?

Room 103 students took a tour of the garden behind the school last week. We saw watermelons, pumpkins, tomatoes, beans and more.  This led to our main purpose, seed drying and classification...along with a short reflection of light energy and color.

Many vegetables are already picked and hopefully eaten, but how do we continue the process?  Did you know that some vegetables from school gardens go to local food pantries? 

Welcome Peter Coppola!

To keep the process going, master gardener Peter Coppola came for a visit with dried bean seeds for us to check out.  How did they become dry?  What can we do with them?  Why do the different seeds look different?  

Next comes a variety of tomatoes like Purple Cherokee and Moon Glow.  We noticed the differences between the different tomatoes.  How do we get these tomatoes  again next year?  Hmm!

Let's cut into the tomatoes and see what we can do. The insides of tomatoes are juicy, wet and filled with seeds.  If we scoop out the seeds and put them into cups we can begin the process of drying the seeds to keep these kinds of tomatoes in our garden for next year.





After digging out the seeds, we put them into water to sort the pulp from the seeds.  Next steps: daily stirring, drying out and seeing the differences in our dried tomato seeds.  Be sure to come back for more!

Explorations in Light

Welcome to our Exploration in Light

As the year begins, we start reviewing what we remember about light and color.  Students experimented with bubbles and light.  

They witnessed the frequency of the bubbles quicken causing rainbows to brighten.  The end result was finding out that violet has the highest frequency.  The bubbles were brightest at the end.  Then they would quickly turn black and pop.

As the children enjoyed their rainbow displays they were given the opportunity to talk in groups about what they were seeing prior to taking notes on their observations.  There was sharing of ideas and information as well as responsibility to the task.  One student even shared how the colors seemed to go through the spectrum in order of Roy G. Biv.  If you aren't sure who he is, be sure to ask your child.

Our second experiment was to use prisms to create rainbows.  As we were trying to make our rainbows, the children noted that the rainbow never traveled straight through the prism and out.  Rather the rainbow came out to the side. 

A great first day of experimentation was had by all.  The children took turns, listened to each other, answered their own questions and more.  

I can't wait to see what's next! 

ME, A PBS LearningMedia Lead Digital Innovator?

I entered the PBS LearningMedia Lead Digital Innovator contest on Valentine’s Day.  I remember editing video right up to the last minute on that Friday.  The information packet said we would hear back in about a month.  The date came and went…I didn’t win, right?  Well, a week later I got the email telling me I was one of 100 chosen winners.  Wow!  Then, a week later, I found out I was one of the top going to Washington D.C.  Me!

So, school is over and my trip to Washington D.C. as a PBS LearningMedia Lead Digital Innovator has really left its mark on me.  It was fascinating to sit among peers with the similar interest of educating children in a technically innovative way or as I like to call it making learning fun.  The trip had so much to offer.  For starters, PBS is remaking its way into education in a digital forum with PBS LearningMedia.  I love all the browse options: grade level, subject, standards and collections.  But more importantly, there are videos, games, primary sources, self directed lessons, full lessons and more including support for educators.  My favorite part of LearningMedia is the ease of use.  I can go in, make folders with LearningMedia resources and add in websites I already use, make a folder of all on PBSLM and share it all with anyone through one PBSLM created URL link.  We even got a sneak peek at their newest website that includes a puzzlemaker, poster maker and video quiz option.  PBSLM and I feel the same way about education, if learning can be presented in a way that students enjoy then learning itself is rewarding. 

But the trip wasn’t only about PBSLM.  There were some really insightful presentations about teaching in the 21^st century.  We heard from Kari Arfstrom about Flipped Learning.  This was a much deeper topic than I had previously considered.  The idea of taking learning and making it accessible from anywhere to allow for more in-depth classroom experiences is right up my alley. 

On Day 2, we heard from two PBS LearningMedia content experts who shared some of their most favored PBSLM resources.  Just look at the links from the picture to see the experts’ favorites.  I love how we looked at math and science from Peg and Cat and Curious George all the way to NOVA. 

Leslie Fisher really stood out to me with her onslaught of digital tools that reminded me that there is ALWAYS more out there.  She talked about some I knew already like Remind (Remind101).  But then she shuffled out some really amazing new tools I look forward to trying or at least sharing: Cel.ly for the flipped classroom, Screanleap.com for mirroring, Screencastomatic, Blendspace, WUFUU and so many more. 

I can’t believe I was chosen to be a part of this amazing opportunity.  I am excited to share what I have learned upon the start of the 2014/2015 school year.  See you soon!

Math Glossary Madness

The year is coming to a close.  The students worked on their math glossaries; and now they are complete. A nice way to tie it all together is to give them the math dictionaries they made. They can serve as a math dictionary for 6th grade or simply a fond memory. As always saying goodbye is hard. Good luck at the middle school.

Gutter Boat OoLaLa

         Gutter Boats

Science at its best leads us to our 5th grade end of year challenge. Can our fifth graders engineer their very own gutter boat applying their knowledge of nature? Students built wing shaped sails to catch wind, applied aerodynamics by making their hulls pointy to cut through the water, and researched boat bottoms to discover how rudders keep their boats going straight.  As always our event was a success with times under 10 seconds.  All students worked hard and in the end were proud of their own accomplishments...and the teachers were quite impressed as well!

Beach Day 2014

Another beautiful day at the beach!  Whether they were swimming, playing catch or standing at the concession stand, all fifth-graders had a blast.  It's always such a great event to have with our fifth-graders at the end of the year.  I'm so glad I got to spend this year with you!