New address

This blog is moving to a new address: http://newsfromroom204.blogspot.com/ From now on, please check this address for news and information about our class. Thanks!

Build your vocabulary and feed the world

If you have some spare time, check out this website. This group will donate 20 grams of rice through the UN World Food Program for every vocabulary word you can correctly define! Anyone can play -- words get harder if you get them right, easier if you get them wrong. Can anyone beat my score of level 49?

Balarat

The fifth grade students from both 204 and 206 had a wonderful trip to Balarat, Denver Public Schools' outdoor education facility, this past week. For more pictures, click here or see slideshow below. The weather was cold but clear and sunny, and we came home just in time to avoid Wednesday night's big storm! We split up into two mixed groups, giving students a chance to spend some time with those in the other fifth grade class, and hopefullly get to know new friends. Each group was small, only 18 students, which meant a lot of opportunities to try new things and work in teams.

After a bus ride up to Balarat, which is located in the mountains northwest of Boulder, my group of students started our trip with a snack and some playtime on the frozen pond near the pioneer cabin before heading out on an ecology hike. Students learned a lot about the montane environment, including the names and characteristics of many common plants and trees. Ask your child how to recognize Ponderosa Pine, Douglas Fir, and Rocky Mountain Juniper! We stopped for lunch at a shelter built near an old mine, one of several on Balarat's 720 acres. This one has been shored up and is safe to go inside, and that's just what we did! It was exciting to be far inside a hill, experiencing life as a miner in the 1800s. We also learned how to drill into rocks using a single jack (in order to place dynamite), how to use a sluice to separate gold-bearing ore from rocks, and how to assay ore to determine whether a mine site would be profitable. Most of the students agreed that life as a gold miner was not easy.

When we had all finished the mine activities, we walked back up the hill to the lodge, where we worked as teams to complete some difficult challenges. Students had to use communication, caring, cooperation, and creativity to solve these puzzles as a group! Finally, we got to settle into the lodges, unpacking our duffel bags and claiming our beds. Students were excited to see a flush toilet. We met up with the other half of the fifth grade for dinner, which was yummy -- food always tastes great after being outdoors all day. It was good to catch up with our friends who we hadn't seen all day. We stayed together as one large group for our evening activities, which included drawing our favorite memories (so far), learning more about common mammals, and eating S'Mores.

The last thing we did before bed was our night hike, something most fifth graders look back on with excitement and pride. We walked up the main gravel road as a team, stopping to find landmarks and noticing features of the path. It was dark, but the moon gave a lot of light, and the stars were amazing! We circled up at the top of a hill to observe some constellations and hear the stories of their names, then one by one we walked back down to the lodges on our own. If walking at night was a first for most students, a solo night hike was definitely a new challenge, but every fifth grader rose to the occasion. They were all very proud of themselves!

In the morning we woke up early (an even bigger challenge for some) for a sunrise hike. Our leader took us up to Bonsai Point, one of my favorite spots at Balarat. From the top of the ridge, you can see forever! It was a beautiful morning. We met up with the other group again for breakfast, packed a lunch and cleaned up our lodge, then headed out for our next activities. We first hiked up to the Ranch House, a log cabin built in the style of the pioneers who had settled at Balarat. There we talked a little about all the different groups of people who had lived on and around this land -- Native American groups like the Ute, Araphahoe and Cheyenne; trappers and traders coming out to explore the frontier; and finally settler families taking advantage of the Homestead Act, which promised free land if you could work it for five years. Splitting up into small groups, we experienced a little bit of what daily life might have been like for these different people. Students built a tipi and tried to use a bow-and-drill to start a fire (it's hard work!); set traps, drew maps, and dipped candles to trade; and baked biscuits in a woodfire stove. It was like living history -- much better than a textbook.

We ate lunch on the porch of the Ranch House before our last activity, a low elements challenge course. The course pushes students to step outside their comfort zone in a safe and supportive environment. Teams work together to get each member around the entire course. Students swung from tires, crossed shaky logs and tightrope wires, and hung from a zipline, always surrounded by helping hands. It was exciting to see everyone complete the course and working so well together. I was really impressed.

All in all, it was a great time. Students learned a lot about their natural environment, the cultural history of Colorado, and themselves and each other. Some of them can't wait to go back as high school counselors, helping new groups of fifth graders experience all that Balarat has to offer.

Division

Division has been a real challenge for the fifth grade math students in Room 204 this year. What I try to show them is the connections to areas of math they already know -- division is like repeated subtraction, or the opposite of multiplication. If you have a large number of objects, dividing is like putting them into groups. Instead of counting out objects one at a time into each group to find out how many belong, we can use shortcuts, putting five or ten or a hundred at a time into each group, and subtracting to see how many we have left. EveryDay Math uses a system called 'partial quotients', which in essence is similar to our traditional long division, but which lets students use multiplication facts they are comfortable with to arrive at an answer through repeated approximations. For some examples, along with other EveryDay Math algorithms, check here or here, or feel free to check with me. There are lots of new methods to do math these days, and some can be confusing for parents! For the most part, though, I think they are a great way to learn, and I wish someone had taught me how to divide this way! You can help at home by posing real-world division problems, playing the math games on the family letter, or just asking your child to explain how they solved a particular problem on their homework. Being able to give a clear explanation of a process is very important in math, and really shows you how much a student understands. Have fun dividing and conquering!

Essaying an Essay

To "essay" means to try, and students have been trying, lately, to write essays! It is a new and challenging writing form for most of them, and I am very proud of what they have achieved so far. We are working on building simple essays that advance a thesis (a thought or claim) and support it with details, examples, reasons, and other evidence. Today we framed our essays using "boxes and bullets" -- a graphic organizer that forms a simple outline. In the box is the thesis, while each bullet represents a supporting idea. Supporting ideas could show reasons why a thesis is true, describe times when a thesis is true, or explain ways how a thesis is true. In the next few days we will explore ways essayists organize their writing, find sources of information and evidence, and present their thoughts in clear ways. I look forward to seeing the final results! If you are able to attend our essay unveiling, held just before Thanksgiving, you are welcome to share in our celebration. More details to come soon.

Conferences and Fall Break

I hope to see you all in the next few days at parent-teacher conferences. Students are welcome to attend their conference, as well. We will have a chance to talk about your child's new report card -- another innovation by the district, although similar in style to what we have been using for the past few years -- as well as any questions or concerns you might have about his or her progress, behavior, etc. It's a good time to touch base after the first nine weeks of school. There aren't formal conference days set up for the rest of the year (we are on trimesters now, so there will only be two more report cards sent home), but feel free to call and schedule an appointment with me at any time. Conferences will be held between 4:00 pm and 8:00 pm on Monday the 22nd and Tuesday the 23rd.

There will be no school on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday this week -- it's our Fall Break! I will be spending some time with my parents, who will be in town visiting from Oregon. They are planning to move out to Boulder next spring, but in the meantime I look forward to seeing them whenever they can make it out to Colorado. Hopefully the weather will improve.... Have a great Fall Break, whatever you and your family plan to do with the extra time off!

Science Fair

The Science Fair is an annual event for our school. Every student completes an experiment and presents their results both orally and on a display board. Experiments and presentations are judged by parents and community members, and prizes are awarded to the top scientists. We stress the scientific method as we prepare students for the Fair: scientists 1) ask a testable question, 2) make a hypothesis, 3) gather their materials, 4) decide on a procedure, 5) collect and organize their results, and 6) come to a conclusion based on their data. Good experiments have a variable -- a part of the experiment that is changed, while everything else is held constant. Without a variable, your project is probably a demonstration, not an experiment! The classic example is the volcano -- mixing baking soda and vinegar together to see what happens is only a demonstration of a scientific principle. It would not qualify as an experiment for our Science Fair. However, last year a student decided to test this question: what happens when you add another ingredient to the baking soda and vinegar? She tested three possible mixtures, recorded her results, and presto! An experiment which was interesting, thoughtful, scientific, and... won first place. Best of all, I think she came up with the idea on her own. Those tend to be my favorites. Of course, it is perfectly okay to get inspiration from science books, the internet, or your teacher if you don't have a question just begging to be answered. Good luck, and start experimenting!