When I arrived at school on this rainy day, I was miserable because we didn't get to go to track and field day at Millard West. When I got into the classroom I saw we had to do handwriting.

At 9:00 I headed to math. Some of the boys did test retakes while the rest of us did the Golden Ratio. The Golden Ratio is a ratio of length to width and is about 1.618 to 1. The ancient Greeks believed that a rectangle built on this ratio was pleasing to the eye.

After math I came back into the classroom to hear Ms. Everts tell us to get out our editing booklets. We did editing until gym, by which time I had gotten it done.

In gym we played Steal the Ball, which is a game in which you have to get all the balls on your side. If you get tagged you have to go to the other team's jail.

Next, we did reading. Everybody worked on their book group project. My group is doing a storyboard and each person has their own scene. Some of us are working with a partner, and I'm with Brandon. During this time Brandon and I got our scene done.

After reading we went into Social Studies. Well... sort of. Ms. Everts said to work on our ABC books while we watched or listened to the movie. We watched High School Musical 2 as a reward for having a good year.

Then came lunch. At recess our class seemed quiet.

After recess, we continued the movie for about 30 minutes. Then we went into Health. We separated into our groups like we did on Friday and watched some videos about how our bodies change.

Finally, we continued High School Musical 2 and worked on our ABC books or our book projects. That concluded our day that was wet and dreary. I hope it doesn't rain tomorrow or Thursday, because we have field day on both days.

Today was an unusual day because it was raining frozen drops on me as I ran into school. When I got to class a spelling worksheet was waiting for me. I finished it quickly, and we moved on to math.

In math, we reviewed negative and positive numbers. We also added and subtracted them. We were given a worksheet about graphing equations. At the end of class, we went to the computer lab to work on our equations and get them down.

Next, we went to music. We sang songs about snow. This was so appropriate for such a cold and rainy spring day.

After music, we headed back to our class for squirt. During this time I took my priority spelling tests. I aced them both and have no more spelling tests for the rest of the year. Then I went back to reading my book, Loser.

I then had to stop reading because the molar I can't seem to stop tugging at, started to bleed. I rushed to the bathroom to see if I could yank it out. Darn....not quite ready yet. Back in class and editing has begun. In editing, I corrected four sentences and one was extra credit.

After editing, we all got a mystery packet. We had to solve a mystery about a roller coaster breaking down. My partners were Grace, Marisa, and Rebecca. We had to read a story that gave us clues and how to solve the mystery. We figured it out and decided this was a fun assignment.

Next, we worked on our ABC Revolutionary War books. I finished with all the letters and am now adding some colors to my book. This project is due the day before school is out.

As my stomach growled like an angry lion, I knew it had to be time for lunch. I had chef salad and chatted with my friends and then headed back to class for inside recess, since it had continued to rain cats and dogs outside. I played "Guess Who" with Paige and wrote on the chalkboard. We had fun.

Then we went to our final Family Group for one last get-together. We made bookmarks for ourselves and talked about our favorite authors. Mrs. Wilson is our family group mentor and our school secretary.

Back in class, we got into our reading groups and discussed what we will do for our big book project. We decided to make large boards with the main events on them. My job is to write and draw the ending.

Planners were next on the schedule. This was quick since we don't have much left to do until the end of the year. So, while waiting for the bell to ring, we worked on our ABC books again.

Tomorrow is our track and field day with the 4th grade at Millard West...pray for no rain....

McKenzie Buchanan

As I finished my social studies code worksheet that was on my desk, we went into math. First, in math we reviewed what we have learned so far. We reviewed by doing a page in the math book. The page had us review graphing, ordered pairs, and origins. Next in math we played hidden treasure. Hidden treasure is a game like battleship but in hidden treasure you try to find treasure not ships. The purpose of playing hidden treasure was to practice ordered pairs. After that we went to Wildcat Wednesday.

When we came back from Wildcat Wednesday we had a surprise that normally Miss Everts wouldn’t let us do. We got to play tug-a-war! We went outside and divided into three teams: one was the blue team with 6 short kids, another team was the white team with 7 medium sized kids, and the last team was the red team, and they had 8 tall kids. I was on the red team. The red team was sure they were going to win. They thought it was as easy as pie, until Miss Everts made some penalties for the red team. One of the major penalties was that the white team could help the blue team. The blue and white team won. When we went back to the classroom Miss Everts explained why we played tug-a-war. We played it because the red team represented the British redcoats; the blue and white team represented the French and the colonists. Now the class understood why we played tug-a-war. Then we had a worksheet to do about the tug-a-war.

Next, we did reading. First in reading we discussed yesterdays assignment with our group. Miss Everts said our assignment was due next Thursday. What we had to do was think of a way of presenting our book to the class without giving away the ending.

I was so excited because it was time for swing choir to go on their field trip to Boulder Creek. When we got there we ate lunch. We got to eat pizza. Then it was time for golfing. I didn’t get any hole in ones, but it still was fun.

When the swing choir got back to school we found out that the people that weren't in swing choir got to work on their ABC books for social studies. Miss Everts said everyone should be at letter P by tomorrow. I was glad that I already had that done.

I am sad to say that I will never be Roving Reporter again in 2008. So, I will make the best out of it. The day was good, but like usual, Mondays are slow.

To start the day, we did math. The 6th grade math kids went out of the room to do their math. In 6th grade math, we worked on converting Celsius to Fahrenheit. Then we reviewed our work. In 5th grade math they worked on graphing positive and negative numbers. Then they had 2 worksheets on it.

After math we went to music. We got to vote on what we could do. We ended up doing a drum circle. That is when there are drums and we go around and play the drums. It was fun.

After the fun time at music we had to get serious. We had to do priority words. It was a 25-word test. We will finish the test tomorrow.

Then we went into health. We learned about genes. We also learned about dominant and recessive. Then we did a fun activity. Miss Everts passed out bags and we picked out two cards. There were capital and lower case letters. The capitals were dominant and the lower cases were recessive. After that, we drew a picture on the cards we picked.

We met with our buddies to help them finish their scrapbooks. Then Ms. Guinn came and we practiced opening lockers.

Finally, we had study hall. Then the bell rang and I got a ride home.

Thank godness it's Friday. I love weekends. Anyway in the morning the class had an assignment to do in spelling called Show You Know, now to math from here.

The first thing we did in math was corrected a worksheet. The next two things were two pages in our math book. Before we could do that the first thing we did was a worksheet, which we did with partners. Luckily, I finished all of my work.

Before gym we did health. In health, all we did is read a couple of pages and answer a worksheet the class had to do.

After gym we took our spelling test.

After squirt we did editing for about ten minutes. Next, after editing we met in our book groups and did our jobs we had to share. See we go through a cycle. First, you are the summarizer, then the literary luminary, finally the connectors. Lunchtime!

After lunch our buddies came to our room so we could help them on their scrapbooks, which lasted until around 2:30.

After that, the class went to the computer lab. If you had work to do you had to do that. However, if didn’t have work, you did Type to Learn 3. Everyone stopped at 3:00 to work on things for our scrapbook type thing we are doing in Social Studies. It's really called a Revolutionary War ABC Booklet.

By the time that was over it was the end of the day. Wow, today went by too quickly.

My day got a little messed up because I forgot my Social Studies notebook at my house. The bad thing about it is that it had my soldiers writing assignment that was due today. I started a new one and finished just in time to hear Ms. Everts say, “Clear off your desks and get your math supplies”. I turned my writing in on time and got my math supplies.

Math was pretty easy because we just reviewed. We reviewed the two rules on how to subtract and add negatives and positive numbers. The first rule is if you have two negative numbers and you add them you just add them. For example -7 + -3 = -10. The second rule is if you have one negative and one positive, you must see which one has more. Keep that sign then you subtract them. For example we worked on the problem –3 + +6=? First we put a + after the = sign because there are more positives. Secondly, we subtract them.6-3=3. The answer is +3. Next we got our assignment. Our assignment was to do a page in our notebooks (51 problems). Then we had a worksheet.

Our next subject was Social Studies. We learned about what lead up to the Revolutionary War. We have to complete an ABC book about the Revolutionary War. We are to assign a topic to each letter of the alphabet. For example, A is for Adams as in Samuel Adams. We have to put three facts about that person, place, thing, or event. For Example one fact is: Samuel Adams was a leader of Massachusetts. Then we have to draw and color a picture representing each letter.

We had to stop working on our ABC book because we had to go to music. In music we cleaned our recorder case. For something new, we got to play the boom whackers. Boom whackers are plastic tubes that are pounded on the floor to make sounds.

When we came back to our classroom, we got to our Social Studies assignment. Our assignment was to pick a topic and circle in the packet what we wanted to do for each letter of the ABC book. Ms. Everts gave us examples in the packet. Next, we have to decorate the front but not in colored pencils or fancy writing yet. Also, we had to do the first page but again not in colored pencils yet. After that we could go into SQUIRT.

After SQUIRT we went into Health. It was our first day of a new health unit. We learned about the five stages of life. In order the stages are: prenatal growth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Did you know you are always changing? Next, we saw a video about what you should eat and typical things like brushing your teeth and taking a shower. Our assignment was to do a worksheet on the five stages of life.

My favorite part of the day was next, lunch. Today was different because some people went to a potluck and some didn’t. I didn’t get to go to the potluck because I had one late assignment. Even though it was completed, I had forgot my assignment at home and I got a late assignment slip. That encourages me to do better in the future.

Some people had an extra study hall because orchestra students left for practice. Next, we got in our reading groups. We only read but we didn’t have jobs to share. You could read together or alone. Almost our entire group read together. We are reading Baby. The book is about how the Larkin’s family found a baby in a basket with a note saying: “This is Sophie. Please take care of her. If you don’t, bad things will happen”. The Larkin’s family took Sophie and cared for her like she was theirs. One day Sophie’s mom will come to get her. It will be a sad day when she does.

Ms. Everts then told us to clear everything off our desks and take a seat. We got our things and sat down. Ms. Everts said we were going to work on Type to Learn. After we were in the library for about 20 to 30minutes we went back to our classroom. We filled out our planners and got a little study hall. I worked on my morning sheet, which was about James Madison. I also finished reading the chapters I was supposed to. Already it was the end of the day. We picked up the floor until we thought it was clean. We lined up and left. I am excited for tomorrow because it’s a Friday

Today was a day as exciting as your 16th birthday, but also as sad as everyone forgetting your 16th birthday. It was exciting because all of 5th grade went to Thunder Alley for the fifth grade farewell. It was sad because we watched a video with pictures of the 5th graders through out the year. It made a lot of people wish that 5th grade was not almost over.

Before we left for Thunder Ally at 9:00 we had a spelling sheet on our desks. I got it done at about 8:55. We left for our field trip, and I sat with Megan and Marisa on the bus. When we got there and I found out I was with Megan, Madison, Alexy and Alyssa. Marisa L. wanted to be with Madison and I wanted to be with Marissa C. so Marisa L. switched with Madison. Than everyone was happy (as far as I knew).

The day went great! We had fun bowling. Later we had pizza and cake from Hy-Vee. It was delicious. I got to go in to a photo booth.
Twice! Once with Marisa L. and once with Alyssa.

When we got back from bowling we went into reading even though it was 1:30, and we get out at 2:00. I'm reading the book, Baby, with Grace, Erin M, Ashley, and Rebecca.

Today was crazy, but I had fun. I hope when you are in 5th grade you get to have as much fun as we did (if you were already in 5th grade I hope you HAD as much fun).

Exciting. That is how I can describe the day. We were all excited for our concert that afternoon. Some were scared. The concert was very enjoyable.

For the first activity of our day, we had math. In math we talked about subtracting positive and negative numbers. What you would do is keep the first number the same and change the subtraction sign to addition. Then you would change the next number to the opposite sign. Finally, you solve the addition problem. We had a simple assignment today. It was to do a page in our books. Easy as pie.

Next, was Spell It, which was easy too. We had about ten minutes to work. It was time to skip on to music. In music, we worked on our 5th grade musical. While we were finishing up, I had to go to the dentist.

When the class came back from music they had a short recess. It was ten minutes. After that they came inside and got their social studies books out. That’s when I came back from the dentist. We had to write the Declaration of Independence to stop our taxes that Miss Everts declared. I worked on the 4th part with Lizzie and Mckenzie. We had to write it before lunch. We all got it done. I finally got time to work on my worksheet. Then, I had to go to lunch duty with Vanessa. Lunch was delicious. At recess I talked with my friends.

After lunch we had a small study hall. About ten minutes. Then everyone who was in band and orchestra had to go and get their own instruments ready. Before I knew, the concert was starting. It was orchestra, band, swing choir, and then finally, 5th grade concert. It was a great concert.

When we went back to the classroom, we filled out our planners. Then Miss Everts said that all taxes were repealed because we did a great job on our Declaration of Independence. We were happy as Claire.

As you can see our day was exciting. I wonder how fun tomorrow will be? We are going to Thunder Alley for our 5th grade farewell party. It will be a blast!

As I walked in to the classroom I saw on the board that I was roving reporter. Roving reporter is someone who writes what we did that day. So this is my version of Roving Reporter!

First came math. My favorite subject. It was mostly about add and subtracting + and - numbers. We used a number line to help us understand it better. Our homework was page 717. We did problems 10 through 17. That was all in math. Then came another fun subject up next. Music time was next. We mostly practiced for our concert tomorrow. We are going to sing 3 songs. They are My Paddle, Daycolorase, Joshua Fought the Battle, and Snow Angel. Another fun subject next. It's spelling time. In spelling, we took a test for new words. By Jonathan Busch

I went to the classroom and I was happier than a mom when she gets a diamond ring. I went to my desk and saw a Social studies worksheet. I did not start it because I was the homework checker. The homework checker is when you see who has turned their homework in and if they have turned the worksheets in, we check their name off.

After that we had math. We worked on positive and negative numbers. It was kind of hard for me, but I got it done. Then we had a math worksheet on positive and negative numbers.

After that we went to the gym to rehearse for our concert. Yesterday we had the rehearsal for an hour, but today we had it for thirty minutes. Then after music we had reading where we meant with our book group. In my book group was McKenzie, Jonathan, Cole, Vanessa, and I (Megan). Our book is called Susannah and the Purple Mongoose Mystery.

Later we had SQUIRT, the book I am reading is called Get me-out of-Here. We had it for 30 minutes. Later after reading we did editing. We check the sentences and rewrote them.

At 12:50 we went to lunch and for lunch I had chicken nuggets. Than we had recess, and I played with Paige. Lastly, we had social studies. In social studies we learned about Britain and how the colonist got help from France to defeat the British. For our work we had to write a journal, and we had to pretend we were the soldiers writing to our family. We also had a worksheet. Finally, the bell rang and it is time to go home.

I walked in the classroom as slow as a slug. My perfect day was about to be shot to the ground. All because I couldn't find my talent show form! Now Drew was in peril of not being in the talent show too. I couldn't sulk for very long for I had to move along right past my morning sheet on my desk as I headed straight to math.

I still had work to check from Friday and then plowed head first into probably the easiest lesson I have ever done on a review about the mean, median, range, and mode. I then charged through that into a brick wall of a tough assignment about reading stem and leaf plots, frequencies and many other confusing things until it was time to go back to Queen Melissa and her unjust taxes.

Back in the classroom we had to do editing. The Queen was intent that now we can do editing without her showing us the mistakes. The story we edited was about Satchmo's Blues a story of how Louis Armstrong grew up.

While we were in music we sang the song Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho. As well as De Colores a Mexican song. The final song, Drew and my favorite song, was Snow Angel.

Next, we had Social Studies. In Social Studies, Miss Everts partnered us up, and we were assigned an event leading to the American Revolutionary war. I was partnered with McKenzie, and we did the Quartering Act. It was when colonists paid to keep soldiers and to feed them.

We had a weird day so we went into SQUIRT next instead of continuing Social Studies. I read The Young Man and the Sea. It's a really good book. It was a Golden Sower last year.

Continuing in Social Studies we read about Thomas Jefferson and how he wrote the Declaration of Independence. We then learned it took Jefferson seventeen days to write and rewrite it. Right as we were writing down our notes I left for lunch duty with Philip, Rebecca, and Vanessa.

After lunch and recess I had to go to orchestra while the class had a ten minute extra recess. Orchestra was great. Unfortunately, we had to go back.

We then came back and two worksheets about the Declaration were on our desks waiting to be done. I got those done lickety split and then met with the Committee of Correspondence to work to repeal the Queens malicious taxes. I decided to pretend to be Thomas Jefferson and write a fake Declaration of Independence.

Quickly the meeting was adjourned due to the arrival of Mrs. Gunny. She handed out locks to practice for lockers. We had a relay as well. As Mrs. Guinn left we had to fill out planners.

After planners got filled out I was put in the book group True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. We had to quickly think of an assignment and we calculated how many chapters a night to assign ourselves. We decided we should read two chapters tonight. I quickly had to dive to safety patrol and finished that. After safety patrol I copied Drew's notes that I missed and I went to finish my abundance of homework at home.

When I got in the classroom, I looked up at the board and I saw today was our visit to Russell Middle School. I couldn’t wait to get there. At my desk I found a handwriting worksheet to do. I finished that in a flash.

Just when I got my book out to read, I heard Ms. Everts say it was time for us to do math and to get our math supplies out. After we did some warm-ups she gave us our assignment. We were to work on page 701 in our math book. It was algebra. We had to do 10-22 problems. Then she gave us an algebra worksheet to do after that. I had to fix a couple of problems, but I realized they were careless mistakes.

Once again I got my book out to start reading. However, about 10 minutes later, it was time for gym. First, we did the pacer, which is when you run across the gym to see how many times you can go back and forth before you slow down. All the fifth graders sat down and voted on which game we would play next. The winner was “Knock the Pins Down”. This game’s object is to knock pins down on the other side of the gym with dodge balls. The game had to be ended early because kids were throwing the dodge balls at each other instead of just the pins.

We got back to the classroom and had SQUIRT. After 20 minutes of reading it was finally time to go to Russell. Since it was a rainy day, we had to take the bus instead of walking to Russell. Our first stop at Russell was the cafeteria for lunchtime. Russell has the best pizza. I ate fruit and a cookie too. After that we visited several classrooms to see what it is like to change classes. I have decided to take Spanish, cooking, and sewing. The counselor said to expect to share lockers because of the large number of 6th graders coming into middle school next year.

We were allowed to walk back to Willowdale because it turned out to be a nice day.

Once back in class we cancelled social studies because the art projects were due today, and we needed the time to work on them and finish them up. We are gluing tissue paper in 3D to make a design. Mine is a rainbow.

It was a great Friday. It was fun to go to Russell, and I can’t wait for the adventures we’ll have on Monday.

Today I’m roving reporter. I had math, Gymsic, and a swing choir tour. It was a very busy day.

In the morning we went to the computer lab to practice fractions. It always helped us to practice before our faction test. Next, we went back to our classroom to take the test. I think I did well on the test, and math is my favorite subject.
Right after math we walked to Gymsic with Miss Everts. Mrs. Lindeman and Miss Carlson made us dance to the music. We all danced for a video and Mrs. Lindeman recorded it.

We went to lunch at noon and then we got on the bus for our swing choir tour. On the bus I sat next to Cole, and we talked the whole way. I like having time to talk to my friends. We went to a retirement home and HyVee. There were about 20 people watching us sing. It made me think a lot about old people. At HyVee people shopping stopped to watch us because we were at the entrance of the store.

Finally, my favorite part of the day was the swing choir tour. It is always fun to ride on the bus. A lot of people watched us sing and they said we were good. It was a fantastic, and I hope we have another one like it.

As I rushed into our classroom today, just before the bell rang, I noticed that Miss Everts had been replaced by a substitute by the name of Mrs. Mack. Just then I remembered that Miss Everts had told us yesterday that she was going to be gone, and we needed to be on our very best Kid of Character behavior.

So, we started the day with a pink spelling worksheet. Then we zipped into math and learned about a new lesson on algebra and the properties of equality. This is an example of what we learned: 4 x 5=10 x 2, which was 20. We were given a blue worksheet to practice this new idea, which is still a little confusing to me.

After math, we worked on writing and read out of our Write Source book. But, we then had to move on to music class. In music, we practiced our songs for the 5th grade concert that is coming up soon. After music, we went back to class to finish writing. We also worked on out mystery about school and mine is a surprise. In grammar we learned about adverbs and how they help to describe other words. This will help with writing my mystery assignment.

In reading we read a story about Lewis & Clark and about the real hero, Sacagawea. We also had to answer five questions from our reading book. Then the sud gave us a vocabulary sheet. Then we raced off to editing.

Next we headed for lunch and recess. After that, we went back to our classroom and had teacher read. Our substitute continued the book The Penderwicks and some of us quietly finished our assignments.

In social studies, we worked on and completed a HUGE packet of terms about the government and taxes. We had to look up the definitions to three pages of words. After that we had a mini SQUIRT, where you could spend half the time reading and the other half finishing any work that needed to be done. After dying from loads of homework by the end of the day it was done.

Finally, the bell rang and we were all sent home or to Kid's Net. Tomorrow we get to walk to Russell Middle School for lunch and a tour. I can't wait...but for now, Happy May Day.

McKenzie Buchanan

Like a normal day, I began to do what Ms. Everts had written on the
chalkboard. Today we did handwriting. Ms. Everts read the assigned jobs in our classroom. Drew and I were homework monitors. When we were checking to see if everyone had turned in his or her assignments, Mackenzie told me I was Roving Reporter. I looked at her confusedly and she said I was Roving Reporter because Megan was gone today. I looked at the board and then at Megan’s desk. I guess she was right! After Drew and I finished checking to see if all homework was turned it, we went into math.

In math we were told that we were going to REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW. We would review continuously, like bumble bees making honey. We were also informed we were going to have a big test on fractions in two weeks. For our assignment we had to do pages 522 and 523 (7 sections) on different denominators, and adding and subtracting fractions. It was also graded! So we had to do our best and double check our answers. I got it done pretty fast.

Next we went to music. After music we had a spelling pretest. It was on related words such as “describe” and “describing”. When we were making our spelling list Ms. Everts told us that we would golf today. Golf is our reward system for doing well in spelling. I went first because I was gone last week and didn’t get to golf then. After we made our lists, we went in to SQUIRT.

Next came reading. In reading we reviewed denotations and connotations. A connotation is how a word is used in the sentence. A denotation is the definition in the dictionary. We looked up words that meant walk but could mean different ways of walking. We each were assigned a word or two. After we found our word(s) in the dictionary, we went into groups whose words had the same meaning. Next Ms. Everts read an article about Benjamin Franklin.
After Ms. Everts read the article, she asked what were some opinions and facts in the article. Next we read our vocabulary words and got our assignment. Our assignment was to look up our six vocabulary words in the back of our books. For example, one of our words was “suspended”. The definition is to hang by a support.

Our next subject was Social Studies. We are just starting to learn about the Revolutionary war. Did you know the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, but the Revolutionary war didn’t stop until 1781? The British had to go by the rules the monarch (King and Queen) and the parliament made. When some of the British colonist went to what is now North America they still had to go by the rules of the monarch and the Parliament. The British in North America didn’t have the right to elect lawmakers to speak and act for them. The British and the French had a war called the “French and Indian War”. The monarch sent over the soldiers because the British colonists were defenseless. Britain made the colonists pay taxes because they think the British already have too many taxes and the war was expensive. The King took away the land the colonists just won, which made them furious. Our assignment was to copy down notes and turn them in.

During Social Studies, our Guidance Counselor came in and talked to us about moving on to sixth grade. We had two worksheets to work on about out time management and our favorite things. At the end of the day we kept reading our social studies textbook. We had to help clean up the room by each picking up 10 scraps. Then we brought our planners to Ms. Everts to check. We packed up and left. I was glad to go home and relax.