Yesterday we had a great field trip exploring the beach and the bay on Assateague Island National Seashore. We arrived to the Assateague Island visitor center where we explored the touch tanks, looked at the aquariums, and saw a movie about the park's most famous resident--the wild horses. Then, the park rangers took us to the ocean side as well as the bay side to explore. Students learned how organisms adapt to these unique environments. On the beach, students practiced living the life of a ghost crab...they had to be careful to not get caught by the gulls. We learned how the organisms of these habitats depend on one another for survival. Over on the bay side, students were able to go micro-fishing with small nets to see what they could find. Students found many comb jellies, shrimp, and other forms of plankton! Our park ranger helped us understand how all of these forms of plankton sustain the other larger organisms in the bay food web. Hope your child shared with you all of the great experiences we had on our trip. Check out some of our pictures below:
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Tonight all students should be bringing home the "Accessing the Parent Portal" sheet. This form was handed out in all classrooms and it provides your child's specific login information for the parent portal. Here you can check your child's grades in each of their classes and see if they are missing any of their assignments. Thanks so much for supporting your child at home! Today 5th Grade had a great first field trip attending Young Defenders Day at Fort McHenry! Here we learned what life was like during the War of 1812 and discussed the involvement of Patterson Park in the Battle of Baltimore. Students traveled to different stations set up around the Fort. Here we saw War of 1812 reenacters, watched and heard a cannon being set off, listened to songs that were sung during this time period, and got to explore the inside and outside of the Fort! We also got to unfold and hold a replica of the American Flag that was flying over Ft. McHenry during the War of 1812. Students got to share their knowledge with the Park Rangers as they discussed who made the flag, and who was inspired by this flag to write the national anthem. Quiz your children tonight to see if they remember! I hope your child shared some of the exciting activities we did today, they sure seemed to have a great time.
Check out the pictures below from our trip: Today we analyzed the results from our experiment! In all classes we found that the celery with all of its leaves absorbed the most amount of water. There was little difference between the amount of absorbed water between the piece of celery with one leaf and the piece of celery with no leaves. After that, we cut the celery into pieces and got to observe and touch the xylem tissue that moves the water throughout the celery! Students added today's findings to their lab report where they drafted conclusions and analyzed what the results tell us about vascular plants in general.
Many students were asking if they could try this experiment again at home. All you need is 3 stalks of celery, some water, and food coloring. Your child should remember the procedure. Have fun investigating! In our life science unit, students have been learning about the structures of plants. Today we set up an experiment to look more closely at the vascular tissue in plants. We are trying to figure out if the amount of leaves on a particular plant changes the amount of water the plant absorbs. We set up our experiment using three pieces of celery: one with all of its leaves, one with one leaf, and one with no leaves. Today students created their hypothesis and helped set up the experiment. Tomorrow, we will analyze the results!
Karon swimming back to his table with a new artifact to analyze.
Today was our second day in our Social Studies unit on the “Age of Discovery.” Today students learned about several factors that led to the exploration of the Americas. We began by reading a story about Christopher Columbus. Then, we “excavated” a sunken explorer ship in our classroom to analyze a variety of artifacts. Students analyzed these artifacts to determine what they were, why they would be in a sunken ship, and drew conclusions about what these artifacts reveal about European motives for exploration. Students had a lot of fun diving and “swimming” to the bottom of our sunken ship to retrieve the artifacts. 5th Grade has begun!Be sure to check our blog for updates and pictures of our 5th graders working hard in their classes as well as on their many upcoming trips!
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Welcome to the 5th Grade Blog!
This blog is dedicated to the fifth grade at Patterson Park Public Charter School in Baltimore, MD. Our hope is that this blog will keep students, parents, and anyone else interested up to date with all that we have going on during the school year. Let us know what you think! Archives
September 2015
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