What's been happening in 5th Grade Science and Math?

Dear Families,
It was wonderful to meet with all of you during the week of October 16th!  I felt like together we created some attainable goals for your children and for me in teaching them!  Please do not hesitate to still reach out if their is something that I need to know about your child and their social, emotional and academic needs.   

8:30 AM Shadow

10:30 AM Shadow

In Science class we have been looking for the answer to these two  question-Why do our shadows change throughout the day? and Why is the sun so bright?  With question one we have collected data about shadows on our campus.  We marked and measured the shadow of a lamp post and graphed the data.  This data proved to us that shadows start out long when the sun is just rising, they begin to shrink as the day goes on, the shortest shadows can be found at noon and then shadows begin to lengthen as the sun has hit its highest point on the horizon and is heading towards setting.  Students are also using a model to explain this real world situation and using their data, photos, books and activities to strengthen their models and how it explains the relationship between  the Earth and the Sun and the patterns this relationship creates in the way we see shadows.  To explore the relative brightness of our sun we have been reading books and taking notes.  Some of the numbers are just so large, we cant seem to grasp them!  The sun is 93 million miles away (our closest star) and if we could get close enough to it, it would take us 4 years to get there!  The next closest star is about 25, 000, 000, 000, 000 miles away!  Ask your cild what interesting facts they have learned about stars!

12:30 PM Shadow

In Math class we are finishing up unit one and our practice of important multiplication strategies.  We have made posters for our notebooks on varying strategies, listed, defined and explained important math vocabulary and used our number sense to practice decomposing numbers. By decomposing numbers, we can use strategies like partial products and the ratio table to be efficient, accurate and precise mathematicians.  We have explored volume and area.  We will end the unit thinking about division and how we can use ratio tables, and the area model as strategies.  Next, we head into FRACTIONS!  

Lastly, Allan Miller, our former principal, has been supporting us through an EARTHKAM mission with the International Space Station.  Along with a partner, students are locating places on the Earth that are of interest to them.  These places are than found along the ISS's orbits around EARTH, we then request a photo of these places on a certain day at a certain time.  AS these photos are ordered and received (24 hours in between) we will begin to find answers to our questions.  We are asking questions such as:

• Does every place along the Equator look the same?  
• What similarities and differences do places in the Arctic Circle ?  
• Do all major cities look the same?  
• What similarities and differences can we see among tropical islands? 

As we explored maps and globes are questions grew! Today we will send our first photo requests to the ISS!  We can't wait!  Thank you Mr. Miller! This has been a great connection to our Earth Systems Unit.  These photos will show the Earth from 250 miles away! 

Thanks for all your Shelburne Food Shelf Donations- we will be collecting until Thursday morning!  So please send more if your'd like!

A note from Mrs. Sanders in Music

Dear Families,

I am so excited to introduce myself as a new part of the Shelburne community! I have met a few parents from SCS (particularly those who also have kids at Heartworks!) but for many of my students, I have not yet had the chance to meet you!

I am the new K-5 music teacher at SCS. Prior to being at SCS, I was K-6 music, band, chorus and all other things musical at Hardwick Elementary School. I have degrees in music education and clarinet performance from UVM and I am entering my 16th year of teaching! I live in Bridport with my husband, Brian, and our almost two year old, Adeline. In my spare time, I play clarinet with the Champlain Philharmonic and love to crochet.

I would love to meet you and say hello! If you would like to drop in and say hi, please do so- I’m usually in my room before and after school. You are always invited to sit in on a music class if you would like (just let me know!)  If you would like to have a more in-depth discussion about your child’s work in music class, please schedule a meeting by sending me an email (or sign up for a conference time below…)

I will be at school in my music room (room C-5) during the following times. My schedule is posted at https://tinyurl.com/SandersConf  You will need a Google account to access the appointment calendar and to schedule an appointment (only needed if you want a sit down meeting about your child - not needed for just dropping into say hello!) You can also email me at jsanders@cvsdvt.org  to make an appointment.

Monday, October 16th, 3:05 - 4:15pm

Tuesday, October 17th, 4:15 - 5:00pm

Thursday, October 19th, 7:15 - 8:00am

Monday, October 23th, 3:05 - 4:15pm

Tuesday, October 24th, 4:15 - 5:00pm

Wednesday, October 25th, 3:05 - 5:00pm

Thursday, October 26th, 7:15 - 8:00am

Monday, October 30th, 3:05 - 4:15pm

*** Please do check the calendar to make sure there isn’t an appointment scheduled if you hope to just drop in.

You can also find more information about music in my classroom by accessing my blog:

https://sandersscsmusic.blogspot.com/  (also accessible through the new, beautiful SCS website!)

I look forward to meeting you.   ~ Jodi Sanders, music

More Solar Ovens and Natalie Kinsey Warnock

Mrs. Crowther's class tested and retested their solar ovens, too!  As a team we have realized that time of day and weather have an impact on the performance of our solar ovens.  Some students noticed that by lowering their impact score they did not always increase the temperature.  Some student noticed that insulators that also behaved as conductors helped raise the internal temperature of the ovens!  Wow! 

Natalie Kinsey Warnock spent Wednesday and Friday inspiring us to tell the stories that can be found in our family histories!  As writers she engaged us in developing characters and scenes based on small details of family history that we know!  Our imaginations were alive as we thought about important decisions family members made in the past!  We hope our work with Natalie will keep us motivated and engaged as we prepare to write personal narratives! 

Now You're Cooking-Designing Solar Ovens!

The Endeavor Team had the exciting opportunity this week to test our solar oven designs.  As scientist we have engaged in many activities that have pushed us to respond with wonderment as to how these solar ovens were going to cook our s'mores! Students spent 2 days designing their ovens and calculating the impact their supplies had on our environment.  Not only were they hopeful that the designs would cook a s'more, but they had to adhere to Green Engineering Practices and use resources that were local and available, hopefully recyclable and or reusable!

We captured our current understanding of "How the Solar Ovens Work" in detailed diagrams and today we will revise these drawings to add any details that we observed while testing them in the bright warm sun!  We also will test each oven, one more time!  We will make adjustments to our thermal insulators so that we can improve our oven's score!  We scored our ovens based on Heat (highest temperature reached), Cooling (slowly cooling to 5 degrees within shade temperature) and impact on environment!  Ovens ranged from 16.5 points to -11 points!  Our Green Engineers are working hard to learn from any mistakes and to tap into their Growth Mindsets and understand that the improvement step is always in action!