What a fantastic day out on the Patapsco River! It is hard to name all the activites the students took part in! They tested the water's turbidity, salinity, and oxygen levels and recorded their findings. The observed and recorded the various wildlife we saw AND touched. They also just enjoyed a beautiful day out on the water. Ask you children what they learned today aboard the Snow Goose! We will be going back out on the Snow Goose in the Spring to compare and contrast the water quality and wildlife from today.
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Today we examined our pond ecosystem and observed how it has changed! Over the past two weeks we saw the snail population in our ecosystem decrease rapidly. We brainstormed reasons why this might have happened. Then we took a closer look at the main producers in our pond ecosystem, the duckweed, and examined how they have adapted to live in the pond. We learned that the roots of the duckweed clump together in order to stay in place and serve as an anchor for the plant. Mr. Kaiser is demonstrating how to roots grow and clump together. Quiz your child on their science vocabulary: what are producers? What are consumers? Have them name one producer and one consumer that live in our pond ecosystem. Today we read about endangered and extinct animal species in Maryland and around the world. Students also read various books brought in by Ms. Kramer on endangered animals and wrote on chart papers around the room different facts that they had learned. We will be going on the boat "The Snow Goose" later this week to visit the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem up close and see how humans have affected the Bay and its various animals species. Students will be seeing some endangered animals up close in person. Learn more about the endangered and extinct animals on pp. 109-110 Today students read about a variety of animal adaptions. In particular students learned about protective coloration, protective resemblance, and mimicry in their Science books on pp. 100-102. Students then worked in pairs to identify which type of camoflage their animals had while cutting and pasting them in the correct areas. Make sure to discuss the sheet tonight with your children! Our fantastic fifth graders did such an incredible job on the Science quiz today so we spent some extra time in the park this afternoon. My football squad is here posing after a hard fought victory! We have an exciting few weeks ahead of us including a trip aboard the "Snow Goose" as we continue to learn more about Ecosystems. Ingri filling out part of our food web Today in science we learned that food webs are several food chains put together! Students read about them and then got to practice making their own class food web. First students worked with a partner to come up with as many food chains as they could. Then, we combined all of our food chains together to make our class food web. Review pages 86-87 with your child tonight and quiz them to see if they remember how to accurately read a food web! Today they learned that the arrows in a web show how the energy is transferred from one organism to another. Today students read about Food Chains on pp. 84-85. Students worked in groups to formulate food chains based upon their knowedge of the Boat Lake ecosystem. On Thursday we will step it up with Food Webs! Today we began our year round Service Project. We will be examing various organisms in and around the Boat Lake ecosystem each month. At the end of the year the students will create a booklet describing the various organisms that can be seen there during the different seasons. Some of the organisms are so tiny that they can only be identified by use of a microscope. Others were observed in their natural habitat at the Boat Lake. This all fits in perfectly with our Colonial Era Theme. In Science we will be learning how the Colonists had to adapt to the new ecosysems they found here in the New world. Parents we had a fantastic trip to Cumberland, MD today. On the way we identified geographic landforms and bodies of water like Braddock Heights, South Mountain, Monocacy River, Sideling Hill and the Appalachian Mountains. The students also read a short book on what it was like to travel on the Underground Railroad on the bus ride out. We learned some amazing history about Ft. Cumberland, George Washington, and the Underground Railroad while we were at Emmanuel Parrish, as well. We hope to have more pics up by Monday. Today students presented their explorer projects to the rest of the class. Their hard work and time spent researching truly showed as each student described who their explorer was, where they explored, and why they went there. Students were eager to share what their biggest surprise was when researching their explorer and what they have learned from doing their project. Even the teachers learned some new facts from the presentations! After the presentations we discussed the history of the town and the church we will be visiting tomorrow on our field trip! Read more about our field trip to Cumberland, MD by clicking on the Colonial Era tab. Stay tuned for pictures and updates from our trip. |
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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