Electronic Field Trip

Today my students got to participate in Colonial Williamsburg's e-field trip through a special skype interview. 

These 6 students volunteered to take on some extra homework and learn all about Utah's Constitution and even memorized the preamble.

Here's a picture of the cute kids getting ready for their interview:

And he's a video showing one of their practices. This wasn't the real thing, just a practice.

Challenge Winner

At the beginning of the school year we sent home a paper announcing a special new challenge. It was called The Great American Challenge. All completed forms needed to be turned in by the beginning of May. Out of our whole 5th grade, only 2 students completed the necessary requirements.

Cute Kaley-Bug was one of them.

Congrats Kaley! I'm so proud of all your hard work!

We've Been Busy

I honestly can't believe how quickly the school year has passed by. 

Here are some of the things we've been busy doing:

For our Mother's Day gifts, we made these beautiful plates.

I was so impressed with how creative they turned out! Good work everyone!

(Note to moms - Did you like yours?)

We have been doing lots of fun science experiments! In this experiment, we got to dissect baby diapers.

We also made circuits and played with bar magnets.

In this little activity, we used Ivory soap to demonstrate how popcorn pops. (We found out that popcorn popping is a physical change.)

This "rock" is actually not a rock! It is an actual piece of the Berlin Wall!! Blake's dad lived there when the wall came down. How cool! It was fun to see and touch a piece of real history!

This is Weston holding a piece of cotton. To understand a little bit of what life as a slave was like, we all  got to clean a piece of real cotton. (We found out that it is really hard work and even makes your fingers sore!)

Today was "Tool Day" for the 5th graders. Tool Day is a career type day where parents come and show us the tools they use in their jobs/hobbies. It was fabulous! Thanks to all our wonderful presenters for coming and sharing your tools with us!

David was glad his dad was able to come talk to us about the tools related to the carpet cleaning business.

These lucky kids got free shirts from the dad who helps educate students about the harmful effects that drugs have on our bodies.

Guess what - Only 9 more days of school!! 

(I apologize for the blurry pictures. That's what happens when you use your phone for a camera.)

States & Capitals Practice Test

I hope you all are practicing for your states and capitals test. If you have a printer, you can print this off to do some extra practicing. 

Good luck!!

States and Capitals

Today we took a pretest of our states and capitals test.... and the results did not look so good. You will need to really study and work hard to memorize all 50 states and capitals! To make this a little easier, we are going to spend the next two weeks (in class and at home) memorizing. We'll have 25 states this week and 25 next week. A test will be given each Friday. To prepare,  I recommend spending at least 30 minutes each night practicing. 

Here's the note that went home today:

Here are some links to help you practice:

Students, after you've played some of these games, leave a comment and tell me which one is your favorite!

The results are in...

What's next?

• We will hold our elections for Senate and House of Representatives.
• Our president will get to choose her cabinet members and nominate judges for our Supreme Court.
• Everyone will get a job.
• Congress will get to pass laws and write bills.

Have any ideas how to make our class government better? Want to share your ideas? Leave a comment and we'll discuss your ideas in class.

THANKS EVERYONE!

Class Government - Elections

Our class has been learning all about our government. We started out learning about the Constitutional Convention and how our country's founders made a plan for our government. We have been learning about the 3 branches, and how each branch works together. We have learned about the Bill of Rights and the 27 amendments. We have also been learning about the election process.

Today, our class held their "party caucasus" and chose their candidates for president. We also held our election for President (and Vice President). Here are the results of the election so far:

*Bailee/Kaley - 40.6% of the vote
Nathan/Joseph - 37.5% of the vote
Kimball/Hazel - 6.3 % of the vote.
Unreported - 15.6 %

*Because we had 5 students who were either absent or got checked out, will will not know the final results until all the votes are in. (If you were absent, you will get to vote on Monday after spring break.)

That means that although Bailee and Kaley currently have a higher percentage, the results are not final.

*Note to parents: I am trying to run everything based on our country's government. I hope students will be able to gain a better sense of how our government works. I am hoping for a fun learning experience for everyone.