Caterpillars - day 6

they are big and they pop and eat a lot. Hag from the top of the lid and move the poop so get the food. There heads come off. The spikes on their backs are pointy. We have had them for 6 days, one more day and it will be a week.
-Tyler

Book Shopping - Best Job Ever!

I absolutely love it when someone at school asks if anyone is interested in ordering some books for ... anything! My hand shoots up immediately. I love buying books for my classroom, I love buying books for myself, I love buying books with someone else's money! So this time the request was to buy some books for our upper elementary Literacy Lab. Teachers can sign books out to supplement and add variety to their classroom library. I started browsing the Scholastic flyer which always has the current popular series kids want to read. But I was feeling like these are the books they already know about, the ones they probably have, our library probably has and our classrooms probably have. I think it is important to have some of these popular books for the reluctant readers to hook in to but we need something more.
Lately in my classroom I have been witnessing kids really branching out with their reading. There are a couple of kids that are willing to try reading anything I suggest they might like (hello, awesome!). They read the books fast. Within days. This is fantastic for the other kids in our class that like to stick to the same series. They see students with other books that they can't put down and immediately there is a pile of sticky notes in the front cover declaring who gets to read it next. These students that will read anything also like to talk about what they read, telling the rest of the class what they thought of the book, encouraging even more reading. Fantastic!
As I was looking for titles that would inspire our grade 4-6 students I remembered a blog I was pointed to by a friend, Mrs. Loewen. Sal's Fiction Addiction is a blog written by Sally Bender, a fellow Manitoban. Almost daily, she writes a post reviewing the latest book she has read. Sally loves books and this is glaringly obvious from the passion she reviews books with.
I am reviewing her posts and creating a list and her passion is making it difficult to not order these books immediately, read them myself and share each of them with my class! Comments like:

"Here's a book that will stay with me for a long time, and I will be talking about it in classrooms visits. Once started, I just wanted to keep reading. Then, when I had to stop because I could no longer keep my eyes open, it was the first thing I picked up when I opened those eyes this morning."

"How lucky am I that I keep reading books that yell to be shared? After reading The One and Only Ivan, and fervently wishing that there was a classroom somewhere that I could share it with, Wonder rises to the top of my TBR pile! It is a book that packs a powerful punch and should be read in every fifth grade classroom...and don't stop there. It is a story that should be read and savored by anyone who loves books that will impact the way we live our lives. It is a 'wonder'!"

Her blog is most definitely worth checking out and following by email. I get her blog posts right to my inbox whenever she adds something new. Or, like I am doing today, scroll down and click the label/category you are searching for and get a specific list of the books in this category.

Lots of New Books!

Well, not really lots of new books but it seems that way! Lately, many of our students have been discovering new books and authors that they love. The best part is that they are talking about these new books they love and the demand for them is spreading like wild fire! I must say, I am very happy to see something other than "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" floating around here!
We were talking at the end of the day about how we could share our new titles with our virtual audience using a web tool. A simple blog post is fine but a list we could add to continuously with our favourites is even better. As we were scrolling through the blog looking for a tool we had used in the past that would work for this, there it was, at the bottom of our page - our Shelfari! Of course! What better way than our Shelfari!
Mrs. Tresoor and I have been scheming about some "not a boring book report" tasks the kids could do when they are finished reading a book. I found this blog post that got me thinking about the cool ways students could respond to their reading. We want our students to be more accountable for what they are reading. We also want them to share what they are reading with their peers, just like they have been today, because we know how powerful peer opinion is when it comes to choosing a book. We both started with a "Now I am Reading..." chart in the room where students put a sticky note of the book they are reading. When they finish it, they give me that sticky note and put a new one with their title. Today alone, 11 sticky noes were handed in for new ones! Awesome.



The pile of sticky notes from TODAY alone!

 One of the "not a boring book report" tasks we have been planning to introduce was to write a book review on Shelfari (or chapters.ca or amazon.ca etc). Previously I have used our Shelfari myself, adding books that I read with my students, that my students read, that I read professionally and personally. This is probably why it sits there at the bottom of our blog, lonely and ignored. Now that I have used it with my students, they are more aware of it and will be much more likely to scroll allllll the way down there!
You can check out our Shelfari by scrolling down, all the way down (perhaps I should move it???) to the bottom of our blog. Or, you can click here. You will notice not all the books are children's books. I also post some of the personal reading I do here. I think it is important for my students to see me as a reader and see the books that I read when I am at home.
Stay tuned for the book reviews coming soon to our Shelfari!

Expert Projects

We have recently introduced a new element to our Daily Five called Expert Projects. Students can use one of their choices each day during Daily Five to work on a topic of their choice. They may choose to share knowledge from personal experiences or research using books, the internet or other people. These expert projects will be presented to the class as they are complete. Some have been shared here on our Expert Projects page as well as on the student's personal blogs. Students have to set up a plan, follow the expectations set out and work towards the rubric we created.

Daily Five is by far a favorite in our class, primarily because of the choice it gives students. When expert projects were introduced, at least 95% of the students jumped right in to a project. The freedom and variety that these projects offers is very appealing to them. Some students have already completed more than one!

While working on an expert project, students are covering a gigantic range of skills including reading/scanning for information, recording information in jot notes, organizing information, tracking resources, using a variety of resources, writing information in sentences using their own words, publishing work using a HUGE variety of tools (web 2.0 and good old marker and paper!) and speaking to an audience. Phewf, sounds like a lot of hard work. But they love it and have fun doing it so it doesn't feel like a lot of hard work.

It's a win-win for us all :)

A Proud Teacher and Welcome 2012!

Welcome to 2012! We all had a fanatstic break that came just in time. Yesterday we talked a little through the day about the good things that happened over the holidays. In some cases, I already knew what had happened for my students because they blogged about it over the holidays :) Nothing could have made me more proud and satisfied than to see my students wanting to write about authentic life experiences on their holidays! This makes the time and effort that goes to setting up and maintaining tools like student blogs worth it. Yesterday we got another surprise when Mason put through a post about his trip to Palm Springs. It was a surprise because I didn't know he was away but more so because he made an Animoto of his trip! Another proud moment because he is a) blogging on vacation, and b) using a tool (Animoto) that I have shown him but not necessarily used with him. He remembered it and figured it out on his own.

My holidays were fantastic, so much happened! I love it when Christmas is right at the beginning of the break because it leaves a whole 2 weeks for travel, visits and projects. This year it was visits and projects. At our house we are doing a big renovation and our whole main floor has been gutted! This means no kitchen and no bathroom, yikes! I was also able to spend time with my 4 nieces and nephews from Kenora snowmobiling, skiing, skating and at the circus (at the Manitoba Museum). Mixed in with all of this were some visits with friends and quiet mornings (away from the renos) with my new Steve Jobs book. It was great to come back to school feeling refreshed and ready to get going with some new ideas.

Have a great 2012!

-Mrs. Dent Scarcello :)

More Time Chilling With Nanuq!

Today was one of those days that remind me why I love being a teacher.

We tuned in to Edmodo and Polar Bear International's webcast live from Churchill hosted by our new friend Andy McKiel. You could have heard a pin drop in this room if it weren't for the scratching of pencils on paper as the students madly wrote their facts and reflections about what they were learning. Everyone was totally engaged in the webcast and the learning that happened, the discussions that were sparked, was priceless. I have included some snaps of our reflections and discoveries that were recorded during the webcast in the animoto below. I wish I could post them all! Some kids even filled the back side of their paper, it was like their little minds were exploding with new information! This week we will be starting inquiry projects about severe weather and climate change, I am guessing there will be a lot of inquiring around our fresh interest in the Greenhouse Effect!
After watching the webcast, we read some of Andy's blog posts from his experience (awesome) and talked about his question, "If polar bears could talk, what would they say?" We also read "Winston of Churchill" which shares a lot of "polar bear opinion" to get our minds working. We had some great ideas about what polar bears would say and extended that to explain WHY they would say it. We posted our ideas as comments on Andy's blog and he replied to all of our questions! Check out our ideas and his responses.

Here are some of our facts, reflections, thoughts and sketches from what we learned today:

The topic of the webcast today was "Polar Detectives: Living In A Sustainable World" which talked a lot about climate change, fitting perfectly into the end of our weather exploration in Science! Below is the recording from today's webcast. Skip ahead to 9:25 for the beginning of the webcast. All of the webcasts from this week are embedded in the video page of Andy's blog if you would like to take a look.

The song that plays as you wait for the webcast to start is "The Polar Bear Song/Bjorn's Song":

Webcast (skip ahead to 9:25):

Watch live streaming video from tundraconnections at livestream.com

 

It was a great day in grade 5!

-Mrs. Dent Scarcello :)

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

image by Jonathan Mak

As you have probably heard, Steve Jobs passed away yesterday. He was 56 and he had cancer. I am sharing the link to his 2005 Stanford Commencement Address below. Take 15 minutes today or this weekend to watch it if you have not already. Here are some quotes from his address that I found meaningful:

"You can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something...because believing that the dots will connect down the road, will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path and that will make all the difference."

"Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith...You've got to find what you love...Do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it."

"Stay hungry. Stay foolish."
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/steve_jobs_how_to_live_before_you_die.html

Exploring Weather with Steve Spangler

In a comment on our blog, Mrs. Malkoske told us about a Scientist, Steve Spangler, she thought we should check out. He posts videos of experiments including one on creating a cloud in a bottle. This is a little different than the one we tried but, it works! Here it is:

Our reflections:
It was really cool how it turned all white. It was because it got all pressured and when he took the thing out it went "poof", like it turned white. -Rachel

It was cool when the could appeared because when we did our experiment it failed but when they did theirs it secceeded. -Kaitie

The cloud and smoke disappeared inside the bottle when the pump changed the pressure. -Michelle

How does it work? Explanation from Steve Spangler Science
Even though we don't see them, water molecules are in the air all around us. These airborne water molecules are called water vapor. When the molecules are bouncing around in the atmosphere, they don't normally stick together.
Pumping the bottle forces the molecules to squeeze together or compress. Releasing the pressure allows the air to expand, and in doing so, the temperature of the air becomes cooler. This cooling process allows the molecules to stick together - or condense - more easily, forming tiny droplets. Clouds are nothing more than groups of tiny water droplets!
The reason the rubbing alcohol forms a more visible cloud is because alcohol evaporates more quickly than water. Alcohol molecules have weaker bonds than water molecules, so they let go of each other more easily. Since there are more evaporated alcohol molecules in the bottle, there are also more molecules able to condense. This is why you can see the alcohol cloud more clearly than the water cloud.
Clouds on Earth form when warm air rises and its pressure is reduced. The air expands and cools, and clouds form as the temperature drops below the dew point. Invisible particles in the air in the form of pollution, smoke, dust or even tiny particles of dirt help form a nucleus on which the water molecules can attach.


We also checked out the "Mentos and Coke" experiment which is not connected to what we are exploring in Science right now but was awesome! We discussed what this experiment might be about before we watched it and we thought the mint in the Mentos would mix with the carbonation in the Coke to create a reaction. Peyton told us what a geyser was, "like a volcano but with water coming out of the ground." This really helped us imagine what the reaction might be. Here it is:


Our reflections:
When the Mentos went in the coke bottle the mentos were fizzy so they shot up. -Mason

When it shot out the bottle it almost used all the pop! -Brooke

It amazes me how Mentos makes the coke squirt out like a geyser. It is because the coke is carbonated and the Mentos coating is chalky. -Ricky

The Diet Coke worked better because it went higher when it mixed with the Mentos. -Michelle

How does it work? Explanation from Steve Spangler Science:
Water molecules strongly attract each other, linking together to form a tight mesh around each bubble of carbon dioxide gas in the soda. In order to form a new bubble, or even to expand a bubble that has already formed, water molecules must push away from each other. It takes extra energy to break this "surface tension."In other words, water "resists" the expansion of bubbles in the soda.

When you drop the Mentos into the soda, the gelatin and gum arabic from the dissolving candy break the surface tension. This disrupts the water mesh, so that it takes less work to expand and form new bubbles. Each Mentos candy has thousands of tiny pits all over the surface. These tiny pits are called nucleation sites - perfect places for carbon dioxide bubbles to form. As soon as the Mentos hit the soda, bubbles form all over the surface of the candy.
Couple this with the fact that the Mentos candies are heavy and sink to the bottom of the bottle and you've got a double-whammy. When all this gas is released, it literally pushes all of the liquid up and out of the bottle in an incredible soda blast. You can see a similar effect when potatoes or pasta are lowered into a pot of boiling water. The water will sometimes boil over because organic materials that leach out of the cooking potatoes or pasta disrupt the tight mesh of water molecules at the surface of the water, making it easier for bubbles and foam to form.

Options, Options, Options in Daily 5!

So far I am really like daily 5 the writing is super fun. I used to hate writing because we always had a topic. now writing is super fun because I get my choice of a topic -Jessica :)

I really like daily 5 beacuse you get to write its so fun. In grade 2 i did not like writing at all but now i LOVE  writing. Right now I'm writing a story about  my dog bening a super hero i think its a pertty good story -Jada!

daily 5 is a great way to start the day because a couple years ago i always thout writing was boring but know it is fun because i have topics to write about.-Mason :o

i like daily 5 because you get to write about whatever you want its awesome.Kayla

Daily 5 is really awesome because we get to pick what we want to do. So far we have learned read to self and writers work shop. For read to self it's explains it's self you just read to your self. For writers work shop we can write a story, graphic novel, novel, poems, comics, song, or whatever you want!!! -Peyton :P

daily 5 is really fun because we get to pick what we want to do. Like we could read first for a while then write in are book it is really fun!;) my favorite type of writing is graphic novel and comics!;)-Brooke!!!

Diving Into Daily 5

This week we dove in to Daily 5. I used Daily 5 last year in grade 2 but it is brand new for our grade 5 class. Launching Daily 5 for the second time and in an older grade is a totally different experience too. We are having great discussions and everyone is quickly on the same page.

Our first choice is Read to Self. We have all agreed on the expectations and the kids were able to follow them amazingly, right off the hop. I am so happy that we seem to be a naturally engaged group of readers! I basically have to pry their books out of their hands when time is up.



Since Read to Self came so naturally and the kids were independent with it so quickly, I introduced our second choice this week as well - Writer's Workshop. This is one of my favourites because last year I had such a fabulous group of writers. They LOVED to write and we had so much fun exploring new ways of publishing. Once again, I am in luck! Our grade 5 community loves to write as well!

First we discussed expectations, brainstormed topics to write about and forms of writing. Today I released the authors and they dove "write" in. Again, when time was up it was music to my ears to hear the moans and groans because they didn't want to stop :)

Once again this year, I am really enjoying using the Daily 5 program and it is so neat to see that the students love it as much in grade 5 as they do in grade 2. Next week the students will post their reflections on the process of starting Daily 5. Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Dent Scarcello :)

Reflections of a Grade 5 Student

We have had a great first 2 days of school. For most of the students in our class, this is the first blog we have had so, this is our first blog post! Now that we have spent some time together and started a few routines and activites, we are taking time to refelct on what we think of grade 5 so far and what we hope will come of it.

I hope we get to do some of the times table. Because I like to  learn math. -Emily

I'm looking forward to grade 5 because most of my friends are in my class and we will be doing lots of projects this year! -Brooke

I like my classroom this year a lot because there are a lot of my friends in my class this year! -Jada

I hope we do lots of writting and reading because I like to write and read. -Ashleigh

i liked the first day of school because i got to see everybody and we had gym on the first day. -mason :)

I hope we learn alot about animals because I LOVE animals and alot of them are very cute like dogs and hamsters! -Peyton

I felt sort of short for grade 5 but now I'm getting used to it. -Rachel

I feel to young for grade 5. But I will get the hang of it. -Katie :)

Already grade 5.It feels awesome! -Ricky

I like our class pet Sushi (hes cute) -Jessica


grade 5 feels to soon! -Kayla

First Day of School Traditions

Since I was little, I have always had a first day of school photo. Since I have been in school ever since (except for one year while I was skiing), I have continued that tradition and brought it to my classroom as well.

Jeff and I on the first day of school.

Our classroom community 2011-2012, grade 5 :)

Goodbye Friend, We Miss You!

Our friend Araya moved to Vancouver Island this month. We really miss her. We recorded these video clips on her last day using my iPhone. Alyssa P put the video together using the iMovie app. Hopefully Araya will watch this and remember us and maybe even call us on Skype!

Goodbye Araya from LeslieDent on Vimeo.

We Are WAY "Awesomer" Writers!

Today as we get ready for our second last TWAS entry, we are taking time to reflect on how we have grown as writers. We are comparing our first TWAS entries to our latest ones and there are lots of things we are better at.

• We have neater printing.
• We skip a line before we start a new topic (we write in paragraphs).
• We write A LOT more.
• We add more detail to our writing.
• We write more topics.
• We use correct spelling of a lot more words.
• Sometimes we write to different people.
• Some of us write in full size notebooks instead of half size notebooks.
• We use punctuation now.
• We start our sentences with upper case.
• We leave bigger spaces between words.
• We type faster when we blog our TWAS so we can share more on our blog.

Here are some examples of how we have grown as writers:

Fort Whyte Voki Reflection

We are trying a new tool to reflect on our trip to Fort Whyte. Check out the Voki that we created together. Later, the children in our class will be writing their own reflections and creating a Voki with a small group to share what they learned at Fort Whyte.

A Great Way to Spend a Tuesday!

Today we went on a field trip to Fort Whyte. This is one of my favorite places to go on a field trip, both as a student and a teacher. We will have more time tomorrow to post about what we learned, today we are going to do a Graffiti Reflection! Stay tuned to check it out. Also, families can stay tuned to our Shutterfly Album where I will post photos from our day.
-Mrs. Dent Scarcello :)

Baby Eagles

Mrs. Malkoske's class left us a comment with questions on our Growth and Changes blog post. One question was "when do you think the eagles will leave their nest?" We answered their question but we were really just guessing an answer. Some of us thought they would stay for 1 or 2 more weeks and some of us thought they would stay for 1 or 2 more months. We started talking about how scientists make educated guesses and decided that we should look further into this to make a more educated guess. Some suggestions from our class were to:

• "google it"
• "bing it"
• look it up on wikipedia
• look in a book
• ask somebody

We looked it up on google and found that the bald eagle will stay in it's nest for 11 or 12 weeks before it can fly away. We also found out that the eagle is in it's egg for 35 days before it hatches. Since we don't know when these eagles were born we don't know exactly when they will leave the nest. We have been watching them for 2 weeks so at the most they will be in the nest for another 8 - 10 weeks.
Phewf, thanks for the question Mrs. Malkoske's Class, you really got us thinking after lunch! We are also looking forward to following the Peregrine Falcons who live in a nest at a hotel in Winnipeg. This webcam is set to start streaming tomorrow at http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/features/falcon/.

This is a map with the locations of the animal cams we are following.

View Animal Cam Locations in a larger map
-Mrs. Dent Scarcello's Class :)

Blog Commenting

We noticed today that some of the comments the children have been posting to our blog have not been appearing. We decided to investigate this and went to the computer lab to try leaving comments. This sparked a discussion about leaving quality comments. We decided that a quality comment would include:

1. Saying something nice, leaving a compliment.
2. Making a connection to ourselves or our lives.
3. Asking a question.
4. Leaving your name.
5. Re-reading your comments to check for mistakes.

We discovered that after you press "post comment" there was a word verification step that most children and Mrs. Dent Scarcello were not noticing so their comments were not posting. We changed the setting so that we don't have to do this step anymore but all the comments go to Mrs. Dent Scarcello for approval so the comments are still controlled and safe.

-Mrs. Dent Scarcello's Class