We had an amazingly fun Halloween Party this afternoon. A group of 7 students planned it all. Thank you to everyone who brought in treats and a big thank you goes out to Mrs. Jorgenson who came in to sub for me!
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Jodi Nordlund will be visiting our classroom once a month to teach us about eating well. Jodi comes to us from the University of Minnesota Extension Service in Grand Rapids. Today she brought in drink containers and we learned how to read food labels. Then we measured out how much sugar each drink contains. Everyone was amazed at the amount of sugar they are consuming when drinking pop and energy drinks. They were a little surprised to learn that even fruit juice has sugar, so it is probably healthier to eat fresh fruit rather than to drink too much juice.
We have been communicating with a school in New Zealand as a part of our Global Read Aloud project. They sent us a video showing us their life at school. We had to use clues from the video to infer where they live. Today we finished the video we are going to send them about our school. Enjoy! Today was Indigenous People's Day. This day was formally known as Columbus Day. We have learned that Columbus was not very kind to the native people he encountered when he arrived in the West Indies. He really isn't a man we want to honor. Instead, many communities in the United States have chosen to honor the Indigenous People that have lived in our area for hundreds of years.
We were lucky to be able to attend the first annual Indigenous People's Day celebration in Grand Rapids. The students were able to experience a pow wow and had a great time dancing with all the children from Cass Lake and Bug O Ne Gee Shig schools who were dressed in their regalia. We were able to hear drum groups from these schools as well as Northland School. Even though the weather was pretty awful, we still had a great time under the big tent in Grand Rapids. The fifth graders are working on an Adopt a Tree project in science. Each student has selected a tree out in our school forest and is spending time getting to know their tree better. They need to research the scientific name and record information about the tree's leaves, bark, branches and surroundings. They also are taking photographs of their trees each time we visit them. These photographs will be put into an Animoto slide show to show the phenology of their tree. The students also spent some time studying branches off of local deciduous trees. They needed to record information about the opposite or alternate arrangement of branches, the leaves and the bark. They now should be able to identify at least 6 different trees that are common in our woods.
We are so fortunate to have received a grant through Aitkin County to receive a healthy snack each day. This program will go through the end of October.. Many fifth graders are trying some new foods such as papaya and mango. We are grateful that Joell is able to come in each day to prepare our snack. Thanks!
We are starting a very exciting reading program this week called Global Read Aloud. We will be reading Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt together. While we read, we will be completing many activities that meet the Minnesota state standards for reading. The best part of our program is that we will be connecting with a class of 5th graders in Seattle, Washington and a class of 5th graders in New Zealand as we read. This first week we will be introducting ourselves to each other using a special website called Write About. Then we will be talking about the book with these students as we all read together. It is going to be exciting to learn about students from all over the world! |
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