Oilskin!

Earlier last week, the kids read a story in class called "Storm Warriors;" it was a story where a group of African American sailors were very brave and went out to rescue a group of sailors trapped off-shore.  In the story, Nathan, the min character, rescued a man with his medical knowledge and wrapped him in oilskin.  We discussed this cloth and I remembered that I owned an oilskin coat!

Today, I brought the coat in and demonstrated to the class the amazing properties of oilskin!  Oilskin is amazing because it quite literally repels water for many years.  As you can see from the picture, it's quite an awesome coat!  Danny wore it so I could demonstrate that when you pour water on the coat, it runs off or simply forms bubbles.  The coat itself, and similarly you, stays dry!  It's pretty amazing stuff!

I can't figure out why this picture is sideways, but there's Danny wearing my coat!

Guidance Lessons

You know, there are a lot of other curriculum things going on in our classroom aside from ME being the teacher all the time!  :O)  Mrs. Solusby, our school guidance counselor, has seen many of our students and has been in and out of our classroom teaching the kids a program on Anti-Violence and Bullying.  The program is called "Say No To Violence."  One of the first lessons, Mrs. Solusby had the kids working in groups building bridges out of interesting items.  It was neat to see them work together to make bridges, and it was a great object lesson to show the kids how to build bridges with each other.

Another lesson was discussing with the kids how to deal with bullies and some students who cause trouble.  We did a bullying survey in our class last week where we discovered that almost 50% of the fifth grade class has been bullied or IS being bullied!  That's a HUGE number!  We are going to be fighting that to bring it down.  Mrs. Solusby mentioned to the kids that the only way to stop bullying is to REPORT IT.  Officer Jenkins is talking about the exact same things in DARE.  Here are some pictures!



Multiplication Masters!

So, I told everyone that I would post the Multiplication Master pictures as they appear, and I FINALLY am getting around to posting some pictures!

If you don't remember, a Multiplication Master is someone who has finished their single fact times table quizzes.  We have three so far, and we are looking forward to adding a few more to our ranks within the next week or so! 
Without further ado, here are our Multiplication Masters!

Kesley was one of the first!

Sam passed on the same day!!!  :O)

Julia was our third!



The DARE Program!

DARE has officially begun, parents!  :O)  DARE, run by Officer Tom Jenkins of the Moosic Police Department, began right after Christmas.  DARE, which stands for Drug Abuse Resistance Education, is a program where the students learn directly from a Police Officer the effects of smoking tobacco and marijuana, and drinking alcohol, how to prevent bullying, and how to resist peer pressure.  Even after two lessons in the classroom, Officer Jenkins is already well-liked by the students.  His stories are powerful, and a great way to get the message out about making good decisions to our fifth grade class.  We welcome him, and we look forward to posting about what our class learns in the near future!



December 23rd Christmas Party Pics!

Sooooo....for those of you who don't know, our class continued to celebrate for Christmas on the half-day Friday!  Here are some pictures from our celebration!  It was a great party, though we didn't have enough time to play all of our games!  Enjoy the pictures.  :O)

A Drawing Contest!  Without looking, of course!

Julia shows off her slippers!

Part one of our celebration:  Christmas Catwalk!

The idea was to design an outfit in wrapping paper...

And then dress your friend in it!

Even the guys got involved!

Julia is lovely in her half-dress!  Go TEAM!

After rolling Logan in paper, the boys decided on this outift.

Layla was quite lovely!

If I'm not mistaken, I think Dom was the winner!  LOL

Reindeer Relay!  Get vasoline on your nose and RUN to stick a nose on your face!

Josh had a blast, too!

All our ladies as Reindeer!

All our gents as Reindeer!

Finally, the last relay was to unwrap candy & eat it...

While wearing mittens!

Everybody had fun!  But time was too short!

Francisco had to use his mouth to help him!

Today we had to do a work sheet that you had to follow the directions and you had to make an interesting thing with your math template and do all kinds of stuff! After lunch Miss R had a water bottle and Christian took it!! Then he passed it to Nick K and he started running around the whole room in circles!!! J (Nick K is CRAZY!) Then all of the boys got into a pile and then Christian finally got the water bottle and gave it to Miss R!! J Then we went out for recess. After   recess  we  had to read our story and everybody was yelling!!! P.S I have a crazy CLASS!! By: JULIA ANTONIACCI

    Okay, in my defense, Nick running around the room WAS ridiculous, but it was very amusing; something for the yearbook in any case.  It was a good day where many things were learned. I will agree with Julia, though; sometimes our class is crazy!  :O)