Toilet Paper and Science??

First off, thanks to all you parents for supplying your child with a roll of toilet paper for school.  I'm sure you thought it was a curious request.  And then to be told by your student that it had to be at least 150 feet long. What could possibly be up with that?  We couldn't do science without it!  And thanks to the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco (http://www.exploratorium.edu/) for developing such a great tool to calculate planetary distances.

What is all of this about?  Toilet paper?  Distances?  Science?  How can all of this go together?

Over the past few days, we've been building toilet paper solar systems!  Yes, that's right.  Our entire solar system (including lowly dwarf planet Pluto) on a roll of toilet paper.  The Exploratorium started us off with a program to calculate the relative orbits of all of the planets if the sun was the size of a 1 cm cube (about the size of a pea).

We quickly realized that measuring each time from the sun out to each individual planet would take way too much work. (Would you want to measure out 43 meters all the way to Pluto?!)  There had to be an easier way.  Fortunately, there was.  Using the measurements that the Exploratorium program provided, we could calculate the distance between planets.  This fit readily with our study of decimals in math as we had to convert from hundredths of a meter into meters and centimeters.  Lots of decimal subtraction, understanding of place value, and rounding ensued!

Then came the measuring!  And teamwork.  And figuring out how you can measure out 11 meters in the classroom when eight other teams of students were trying to do the same thing without moving all the desks and chairs out of the way!  Could it be done?!  Of course!  Fifth grade inventiveness and teamwork really kicked in.

We will finally get to unroll our solar systems (and add asteroid belts) next week.  We will need a whole lot of space to do that.  There is only one place in the school where we can do this, and it's not the gym.  In the meantime, enjoy these photos of our solar system building in action.

Measuring with a partner--one person measures, the other holds the place.

Using teamwork in a confined space.

How far to Pluto??

CLIC Light Lab

We recently wrapped up our unit on light energy with a visit to CLIC. Students had an opportunity to work with light in hands-on experiments using lasers to understand how light acts in fiber optic cables. Mrs. Larussa explained how these properties of light have implications in our everyday technology (cell phones, Internet, cable television just to name a few).  Pretty amazing to think that the seemingly simple stuff we study in 5th grade science has application to the real world.

         Light moving through a stream of water.  The light follows the path of the water.

Observing light reflecting through gelatin "fiber".

Change Is Simple

     Today we had educators from Change Is Simple visit our classroom to teach us about energy--where it comes from, how much different appliances in our households use, and what we can do to not waste it.  They brought hands-on activities to really help the students understand the value of energy.  Did you know that a hairdryer uses almost 1300 watts??!  That's about 100 times as much energy as an LED bulb.  And a small, handheld vacuum cleaner uses over 200 watts.  It makes you rethink using a simple broom or dust mop to clean your floors.  And cranking up enough energy to light a standard incandescent bulb takes a lot of hard work!

     Change Is Simple will be visiting our school periodically until the end of the school year, bringing more hands-on opportunities to learn about energy and what simple changes we can make to impact our world.  Check them out at their website http://www.changeissimple.org/

Cranking away to light a 60 watt incandescent light bulb!




Patrick showing us a "model home" and where we can save energy.
















Gillian using a wattage meter to show how much energy is used by different common appliances in our homes.

Our Final Days of DASH

Trying to cut and write with our non-dominant hands

With fifth grade comes the last unit of DASH presented to Topsfield students.  This year, students worked through physical disabilities.  The first week was centered around fine motor disabilities, with various simulations in the classroom.  It may look like all fun (and there is some fun involved), but students take away a greater understanding and appreciation of how people can be different yet capable of the same things. Isn't it a great and wonderful thing that we are all different?

Learning about various tools that someone with a disability might use and how they work.

Using a communication board requires a lot of concentration.

Trying to get dressed without the use of our hands.

Students also tried out various equipment for gross motor disabilities during their gym class. While it looked like fun, most students quickly realized how difficult it was to carry their book bag or their lunch while using the crutches or wheel chairs.

Looks easy, but trying carrying a backpack too.

Getting dressed and up and about when you can't move your leg.

Trying out the crutches.

Thank you to all the volunteers that helped with DASH this year.  It couldn't happen without you!

Four square with just one hand.

Strawbery Banke Visit

The weather was perfect for our field trip last week to Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  Thank you to TESPTO for underwriting the trip.  We spent the day at this living history museum just a few blocks from downtown Portsmouth.  Traveling back and forth in time, we explored the houses, hobbies, and lives of the immigrants that moved to this neighborhood.  The students particularly enjoyed trying on the clothes of colonial children, commenting that there were so many layers to put on.  They also considered what it would be like to come to Strawbery Banke when they assumed the roles of various immigrants to the area, from Irish servant to colonial slave.  I encourage you and your families to take another visit to Strawbery Banke to find out even more about this little local gem.  Check out the website at www.strawberybanke.org

Watching the meals being cooked.  That's a tray of dried pumpkin
which can be reconstituted with water.

The baseball hat is a bit out of time.

Dashing!

This was a favorite coat for the young men.

Smiles!

There was still another layer to put on.

Ahoy, mates.  Outside the woodworking shop.

Cardboard Challenge 2015

Another great year of the Cardboard Challenge!  Inspired by the YouTube video "Caine's Arcade", our 5th grade students, under the direction of Jen Larussa in the CLIC lab, designed, redesigned, and built their own cardboard creations.  Working in teams, they had to agree on a concept and then construct it.  Sounds simple, but it is always fascinating to me to watch how they grapple with the design problems that arise, not to mention how to work as a team.  Bringing their ideas to reality is no easy feat.  Here are just a few excellent examples of that creativity from our classroom:

All in all a really great afternoon of creativity.  Amazing what a little cardboard and duct tape can let loose.

Writing and Reading and Thinking About Einstein

On Friday afternoon, our class had a visit with the author Mark Peter Hughes.  Mr. Hughes is the author of several teen and tween novels, including Lemonade Mouth (which some students recall as a Disney movie) and A Crack in the Sky (of which we received a copy during his visit).  You can find out more about Mark Peter Hughes on his website www.markpeterhughes.com .

We were able to learn many things about writing during our seminar with Mr. Hughes.  As we are just starting our personal narratives, he gave timely advice on how to "show not tell" in our writing.  He told us encouraging stories of how he had to work at his own writing, sharing the first draft of one of his published books and the revised final result.  It was good for students to see that Mr. Hughes completely revamped his approach to the story.  If a professional writer has to revise, so can a 5th grade writer.  We were also able to practice using our five senses to write short passages.  Thank you to TESPTO for bringing Mr. Hughes to Proctor School.

We have also begun the Global Read Aloud for 2015.  This year we are reading Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt.  We've only read a few chapters together, but the students are making connections and beginning to relate to the main character.  What an exciting concept to be reading the same book as the rest of the world!

"Everybody is a genius.  But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." -- Albert Einstein