Week 26- March 21-25

What a lazy, uneventful week.

Monday- The kids did a unit review using their science journals

Tuesday- We played Trashketball (I'm still surprised how some kids manage to lose their reviews in 24 hours, despite the emphasis I put on KEEPING IT SAFE)

Wednesday- They took their test on the Adaptations Unit

Thursday- We graded homework and then created a  bar graph using the inherited traits checklist from before spring break.

Thursday was an early release day (Thanks, Easter) so we had just enough time to take care of our grading and make these nifty graphs. I'm going to make a big poster board like I did last year for the 7th graders.

I can feel the STAAR test around the corner, like some monster in my closet. This year is going to be very different from last year. Not only do we have these stupid timekeeping tasks to complete (how am I supposed to actively monitor if I'm doing all that math on how long little johnny was in the restroom?) but the 5th graders also stop testing for lunch (since we eat at 10:30). We have a silent lunch, and we have to eat with our kiddos. INSANITY.

Anyhoo, I hope you all have a successful STAAR week.

~Ms. Kat

Week 26- March 7-11

Ah, Spring Break. It was glorious, if far too short. I painted the exterior of my house over the break. Well, most of it. 5 gallons into the job, and we're almost done. Stupid textured asbestos tile.

To recap what we did on the last week prior to spring break...

Monday- We took notes on biomes. I adapted an accordion foldable from this foldable bundle.
We then did a biome coloring map. The kids needed a bit of instruction (we labeled the countries together) and they found it challenging, but they did well in the end.

Tuesday- We talked about adaptations that organisms have to live on land. Just a brief overview, though we did talk about a few specific things (bird beaks or feet always seem to end up on the STAAR test).

Wednesday- We talked about adaptations that organisms have to live in water. Again, we made sure to talk about webbed feet because that's another big STAAR favorite.

Thursday- We learned about inherited traits, and then took class-wide polls to see how many of us had these traits. We'll be using this data to make a giant bar graph next week.

Friday- We learned about learned traits, and again, took class-wide polls.

Butterfly Update- All of our caterpillars went into their pupa stage before we left for spring break (except the one who was behind by a few days). I went to check on them Saturday and a few of them had hatched. I left them with their feeder and when I returned Monday, they had all hatched (again, save for Itty Bitty who is still in his pupa.) We released a few of them today during recess, and the kids were fascinated!

10 more weeks of school left. We have STAAR math and reading next week, then my benchmark, then a month of STAAR review. It's going to get crazy, folks.

Hope you enjoyed your spring break!
~Ms. Kat

Week 25- Feb 29-March 4

Wow, one more week until Spring Break. I can't believe I made it this far. My 28th birthday is right around the corner. For someone who didn't think she'd see 23, this is definitely a huge deal.

Small side note, because it's hilarious (though quite disturbing)
We had a female student bring a dildo to school today. Not only that, but she put it in her pants, sticking out of the zipper, and was bumping into people with it! Suffice to say, she's in alternative school. If anyone ever tells you Middle School is the easy years....

Monday- We did some notes on Complete metamorphosis (using the same Science Doodles set from last week) and another page of my own invention to practice the order of the stages.

Tuesday- We compared incomplete to complete (Science Doodles again) and spent a few moments to explore the life cycle of a plant

Wednesday- The kids took their Vocab quiz. I spent the end of class explaining tomorrow's assignment...


Thursday- I tasked the kids with coming up with a comic strip about metamorphosis. I gave them 4 organisms to choose from for both complete and incomplete, and put pictures of each life cycle on the board so they could draw the stages. Here's mine:

I had expected this to take 2 days, and for some it most likely would have, had I not made them finish in study skills to go out to recess = )

Friday- Since I had a day  budgeted for comic strips and we were all done. We watched Bill Nye's Locomotion, followed by part of a Magic Schoolbus on Bugs

Here's our Caterpillar progression for the week:

Hope you all have a peaceful last week before Spring Break!

~Ms. Kat