She Blinded Me With Science

Today was our annual STEM Fair.  Most of the class participated this year and they did wonderful experiments.  Here are a few pictures from those that participated.

Piece By Piece

It starts with a picture.

(From Pretty Neat Creative)

The picture is then cut into 30 equal pieces.

Each student is given a piece of the picture, along with a square piece of paper.  The goal is to color exactly what they see in their piece of the picture.

All of the pieces are put together and we see the final picture.

The lesson: Sometimes we only see part of the picture, but it's not until we get everyone's piece (or point of view) that we can see the whole picture.

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

Westbrook had a tree in the Festival of Trees this year.  For this reason, Ms. Holt allowed us to take a school-wide field trip to the Festival.

Here is the Westbrook Tree.

And some of the rest...

Wooden Ships

We started learning about the Pilgrims today.  Before we began, I taped out an area on the floor that was the equivalent of where the Pilgrims had to stay during their 66-day voyage.  The students had to sit there and do there work to try to get an idea of how cramped the quarters would've been.  (And we have only about 1/3 of the people that were on the Mayflower.)

Recuérdame (Remember Me)

After a great Halloween yesterday, we spent today learning about Día de los Muertos. (Day of the Dead)  We've had an ofrenda - or offering - up in the classroom for a few days.  A few of the students added pictures to my mom's to help celebrate and honor their family dead.  

We watched a video later in the day, and then the students painted calaveras de azúcar - sugar skulls - as we listened to various musicians from Mexico. 

This Is Halloween

Today we celebrated Halloween. It started with the annual parade, followed by a "Thriller" dance (which didn't work out how we wanted) followed by the class party. I am grateful for the parents who helped organize the party, as well as donate food, supplies and time for it. The kids had a blast.

Polka Your Eyes Out

The Chardon Polka Band came out from Cleveland, Ohio to perform for our fifth grade today.  Okay, so they were actually in Utah for Oktoberfest, but Mrs. Craker's cousin is in the band, so she pulled some strings to get them to come to Westbrook.  Not only did they play their modern polka, they taught about instruments and music.  I don't know how much the students liked it - although they seemed to enjoy dancing around - but I absolutely LOVED it!  Thanks Jake, Mike, Joey & Mitch!