5th Grade Skypes an Expert

Welcome to Jordan, our new 5th grade blogger, and Deuce, our new 5th grade photographer.  Thanks, again, to Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation for Skyping with a few of the students for their Genius Hour project!

Today in GT we tried to solve a riddle Athasi shared with us. We all tried to be the one to solve it but since it was a riddle no one could. We read the end of The Giver which we were all surprised by I think that someone was even sniffling!!!!! After we all wrote are opinions down and how we perceived the ending. We managed to fit in a little bit of genius hour and one of the groups even skyped their expert!!! Unfortunately Mrs. Eichholz is leaving and we will see her on the first Monday of February. This makes it worse because we can already hardly wait to see her again!!

 

4th Grade Chooses Theme Songs for Tuck Everlasting

Today’s blog post was written by Elizabeth. Trent was our photographer.

Today in fourth grade GT we went through a playlist of songs. Each student picked one song that they thought best describes Tuck Everlasting. The student then had to explain why he or she chose that song. We also played a Tuck Everlasting game using Padlet and the Activboard. Even though the team that won got an unfair advantage of three people for most of the time, it was still fun. We also learned that we would be doing Genius Hour soon. We began preparing today by brainstorming ideas for the exciting event based on careers, multiple intelligences, and heart maps.

5th Grade Works on Genius Hour

Today’s post was written by Athasi and Mahli. Emmett was our photographer.  However, something happened with the pictures he uploaded, so I am just putting in an image to hold their place until we find them!

Have you ever wanted to learn about something you choose at school? Well today in Genius Hour we got the chance to do that. Everyone has the power to change the world even if you’re just helping around your neighborhood. That is why this year  Mrs.Eichholz told us that our projects need to be something that could be helpful to the world. She also showed us 101 ways to show what you know. It had some really cool ideas like a sitcom or a quilt. Last year our group made a game show about photography, and this year we will use the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song to create a rap about blindness/color blindness.  After we finished genius hour projects we read The Giver.  Finally, we  did a SCAMPER activity using the A and the E (adapt and eliminate) We could adapt santa’s sleigh to a different environment or eliminate presents from a holiday and replace them with something else. Be sure to check back in 3 weeks to see what interesting things Mrs. Eichholz has planned for us!

image from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsdkrebs/8486746396/

image from: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mrsdkrebs/8486746396/

5th Grade Starts Narrowing Down Topics for Genius Hour

Billy is our student blogger for 5th grade, and this is his first post of the year! Aya is our wonderful photographer, who tried to take pictures from lots of perspectives!

Guess what day it is? GT5 day!! Today we got our assigned jobs and got a bunch of class dojo points. We also read The Giver,the best book in the world! We are in so much suspense about the book. We also watched an inspirational video by Kid President and Grover. They gave us a pep talk about believing in ourselves and stepping out of your comfort zone and into your courage zone. We used the Chrome Books to fill out a form for genius hour. Oh wait, did I mention we did some stations. We went to our stations and used our brains to solve the problems. You would usually try to prove the answer, but we learned you can actually gather more information by disproving the answer. That was our day. Creative and fun as everyday is.

3rd Grade Presents Their Solutions for Cafeteria Behavior

Yesterday, the 3rd grade students presented their proposals for ways to help with noise and messiness in the cafeteria.  They based their ideas on research they had done, including interviews with principals from other schools (Mr. Gustafson and Mr. Gilpin).  Mrs. Jessop and our “Principal for the Day,” James Allen were the audience for the presentations.

Anna presented a board game that she made that could be played to reinforce cafeteria behavior.  She made one game set for each grade level that includes the directions and game cards.  Classes on the grade level could pass the game to each other when they are finished.

Roman created a video game using Gamestar Mechanic. It also reinforces cafeteria behavior with questions about appropriate ways to act when in the lunch room.  His vision is for the link to be available on the student shares drive, and students who have teacher permission can play the game when they come to the library.

Timothy and Katie were very motivated to use movies as an incentive for good behavior in the cafeteria.  They used an app called Touchcast, which allowed them to use a green screen and add some special effects – including a live, intereactive poll – into their video trying to persuade administrators to use this idea.  (We had a few issues with the app, as you can see from Timothy’s floating head in the photo below, but it finally worked out!) They were careful to look at the idea from many perspectives, and included these in their video.

As a class, the students also liked the idea of engaging student leaders to help out in the cafeteria.  Since we are a Leader in Me school, this seemed like it would fit in well with our school goals.  The class worked together to come up with a vision for how this would happen, and Timothy and Katie put the ideas together into an Adobe Voice presentation.

Mrs. Jessop said that she would share these ideas with the other administrators, and we will hopefully be able to implement some of them next year.

5th Grade Does an Aurasma Scavenger Hunt

This blog post is brought to you by Aubrie.  I didn’t really get a check for being a great teacher 😉 It’s a check for money to purchase more materials for our Maker Studio.  You can see this post for more information.

In G.T. today we were able to do Genius Hour, and Kris, Connor, Cooper, and Harrison presented their projects. Cooper and Harrison presented about rare or uncommon sea creatures. They made a scavenger hunt, but instead of using clues, they told everyone the general area where they were hidden, such as the playground or the library. We would scan them with Aurasma, and a video would pop up. The video contained facts about the fish and their names.

Kris and Connor made a pop quiz with random facts, like- What is the atomic weight  of uranium? or What note does a car horn beep on? They also used fun sound effects whenever someone was right or wrong. Alexia will present next time, and her presentation will be the last one.

We watched a video about an app called Floors, and got to play it as well.

Mrs. Eichholz bought an app called Tangible Play, or Osmo. Since we were one of the first people to test the game, we got a thank you card from the people who invented it, and a $50 discount, if we want to buy the game!

Mrs. Eichholz also got a check for $2,129.40, for being such a great teacher!!

 Only 1 more G.T. class left!! (Oh no!)

Come back next week!

 Photo May 22, 10 33 43 AM

5th Grade Learns About Grover Cleveland and Lego Stop Motion

This post is brought to you by Aubrie.  

In G.T. today we were able to do Genius Hour, and Aubrie (That’s me) presented a project about Grover Cleveland. I traced him back to 1540, and made it into a game. Alex and Kenneth also presented their project about Lego Stopmotion, which is where you take a lot of pictures of one thing moving, and you put it together to make a video. They made a scavenger hunt to look for pieces of paper with Lego facts on it and made a quiz about it. They also made a Lego Stopmotion video and presented it.

We watched 3 videos as well *(attached below!)*, and talked about the meanings. (Although, 2 aren’t on here).

Lastly, I bring you bad news: *Only 2 more G.T. classes left!!*

 

See you next week!

Careful canine reaches for ball – YouTube

Axtell Park Awesomeness

The Time You Have in Jellybeans

5th Grade Begins to Put Together Their Dream Teams

This blog post was brought to you by Aubrie.

Today in G.T. we got to do Genius Hour, and Paige presented her project about Albino animals. She made two videos, and presented them to us. Aubrie (that’s me!) will also present next time we go to G.T.

We got to do Maker’s Studio, and Mrs. Eichholz got a new app for us to play. It is called ‘Floors’, and you can make your own video game using symbols in it. The app works on IPads, and they might extend it to other devices, but for now, try it out!

We worked on our character trait floor plans, and are working on connecting them with Tellegami or Puppet Pals.

We are also working on a project called ‘Dream Team’. For now, we are just working on finding two people who have shown a good example of a habit, and explaining it.

Lastly, I have bad news. *Only 3 more G.T. classes left!!*

So do something awesome! Watch the video attached below to inspire you.

Come back next week!

5th Grade Gets a Lesson on Anne Frank

image from: annefrank.org

image from: annefrank.org

Two of the girls used their Genius Hour time to learn more about Anne Frank. Their presentation included a scavenger hunt that took students around the school to learn, and then an assessment back in our classroom.  As we reflected about the lesson, the students appeared to have learned quite a bit, and we had a valuable discussion about the persecution of the Jews during World War II.

Another valuable discussion that we had was during a Socratic Dialogue about how to keep schools safer.  Having just finished reading The Giver, which brings up the question of how much freedom we are willing to give up to be safe, this topic seemed to be very pertinent after last week’s soft lockdown.  The consensus of the group seemed to be that they do not feel our freedoms should be restricted any more, even for the sake of safety.

I was very impressed by the student contributions to the “Scribble Challenge” posed by an elementary school in Minnesota in which we are participating. I’ve included some of the creative entries below! (Remember that you can click on each thumbnail to view a larger version.)