Drum roll please…. Ms. Sanborn's class corrected their Unit 6 math study guides this morning. That could only mean one thing. The test is coming! Yes! Wednesday!
Alyssa said the study guide was easy, but there were some questions that were difficult. I say if you did a fantastic job on the guide and study the study guide the real test won't be too tough.
This unit's test is all about fractions, mean, median, and more. We even had to add and subtract fractions with different denominators. Yuck! But it was in this unit that we learned how to figure out how to get common denominators.
I wish everyone and myself good luck on the test!

Oh boy!!! It's almost time to take another Unit math test, but first we have to do the study guide.
The first thing we did today was give our math journal to the person two desks to the right so we could check pages 204 and 206.
Next, we highlighted the pages we are supposed to study from on page Viii. We also did page 207 together to help us study Stem and Leaf graphs. After that, we took out our dry erase board and marker. Ms. Sanborn gave us a couple of problems to do.
Finally, we had to do the study guide. It was three pages long and it had 22 questions that were really hard.
Math today included doing page 207, using our dry erase boards to study, and completing the study guide. I think doing the study guide will help people do well on the test Wednesday.

Wow that was a lot of fun working with clay, a scale, and gram blocks!
Today we were measuring the density of all those things. Everyone on my team was having a lot of fun measuring the density of a block or a piece of clay. Also we would do problems just like what is the mass of the block?
It was fun to measure in science.

“I think that everyone would really want to win this contest! It sounds really exciting,” said Ally. You are probably wondering what is the contest and why!
Our teacher, Ms. Sanborn, explained to us that there is an Arbor Day poster contest, and the theme is “Trees are Terrific and forests are too!” I personally am overly excited about this contest. She introduced this to us by reading us a book. The book, Sky Tree was about a tree, and the tree was in the same place in every picture throughout the year. We saw how the tree looked in different seasons. When the tree was bare, the illustrator made it look like the clouds and the blue sky were the leaves on the tree. My favorite page of the book was a winter scene where the tree branches were blanketed with white snow.
After she finished the book she went to the website that had last year’s poster winners from all over the US.
Wow! Last year’s contest winners were TREE-mendous! Their theme was “Trees are Terrific in all shapes and sizes.” The artwork looked like a professional had done it not a fifth grader.
Next, Ms. S. showed us how to draw “naked” trees. First you draw a trunk with a slight curve to it. Then you add one branch, not straight, coming off the trunk on each side. From there you branch off from biggest to smallest. Lastly, add your season and the details that go with it to it.
“Trees are Terrific and forests are too” is going to be a challenging contest. I hope I win because there are prizes!

“Say cheese!” Flash. “Oww, my eyes!”
That was what we said and did while we got our class picture taken.
Our mouths and eyes hurt horrifically because we had to work so hard to smile. Our eyes hurt because of all the flashes. I think it felt like they were trying to blind us.
Besides class photos they also took our school club pictures. Some of the clubs were Choir, Chess club, Safety Patrol and Student Council. There were people who were in all of them! They must have been really tired of smiling!
Some people got individual pictures too. For the individual pictures, the background was grass and bushes and we leaned on a green fence. I wonder how those will look?
So today was full of cameras, smiling, and eyes hurting from all the flashes!

Do you know anything about colonial times? Well Ms. Sanborn's class should. To show we did we had to go back in time and write an informative letter to somebody we knew back then. Some people wrote to close friends and some wrote to family members. The difficult thing was that we had to write the letter like people did in colonial times. We had to include seven facts in our letters. These letters included our knowledge about the jobs, laws, food, and a lot more.
Today we got together and shared our letters. After someone read their letter, Ms. Sanborn drew sticks (the sticks have our names on them) and the person she drew had to say one fact that they learned or heard that was in that person’s letter. So we had to listen extremely well so that we could remember a fact in the letter that was just read.
Some letters were funny because they included bad things that happened to them or family members and why it happened. Colonial times were different and difficult, but so were writing the letters. But it was also fun to listen to how everyone used the facts and their imaginations differently.

“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you, happy birthday Ms. Sanborn happy birthday to you!” Well her actual birthday is on the 21st but we celebrated today. Happy birthday then and now! I wonder how she is? Never mind about that.
At three o’ clock Ms. S gave us her birthday treats! She gave us a choice of having a float, ice cream, or just pop. A “Secret” she called it. It was something her dad used to make with she and her cousins.
There were two kinds of ice creams. One was plain vanilla and the other one was confetti ice cream. There were three different kinds of pop to choose from Sierra Mist, Pepsi Wild Cherry, or Root Beer. The floats (Secrets) were DELICIOUS!!
We made a card for her and everyone signed it in our class. She didn’t even know we made it. I can’t remember who started the card. It was either Nikki or Sumon.
Thank you and happy birthday Ms. Sanborn! They treats were AMAZING and YOU are too!

M&Ms in Math
Who in the world would imagine M&Ms in math???
Well, Ms. Sanborn gave us M&Ms when we started math and we almost all ate all of them because who could resist the chocolate candy goodness? ( Mmmm...Oh, sorry! I was just thinking how those M&Ms tasted.) Everyone loved eating their M&Ms when it was time, but time wasn't soon enough.
After Ms. Sanborn handed them out, we turned our math journals to the page we needed for it. Ms. S put us in partners where we combined five M&Ms with them. It was torture watching those M&Ms hungrily! Combining M&Ms makes them all the more appetizing.
When I asked people what they thought of math today, I got some very interesting replies. Jenny said: "The M&Ms were yummy!"
Kaitlyn said: "I enjoyed the activity with M&Ms. It was the best math lesson of the year."
Those two different points of views seem a little opposite, don't you think? Oh well.
Anyway, we wrote down how many M&Ms of each color we had in our 10 and turned that number into a percent. From that (a sample), we guessed how the class's results combined would turn out; we guessed which color would have the most and which would have the least. Ms. Sanborn guessed that brown M&Ms would have the majority, and guess what? For once the teacher was wrong. In this case, waaayyyy wrong!! Ms. Sanborn guessed most and it turned out to have the least! Most people got a good laugh out of it.
After finding out percentages and Ms. S being wrong, we got to eat our math. It seems like math eats our brains, but for once we got to eat it.
Wrapping up a good math lesson, Ms. Sanborn finished with an extra math page. Why does something so exciting have to end so terribly?

Today in art we did a project that had to do with POP art. If you are wondering what POP art is then just keep reading.
Pop art is art that was created from what people liked seeing in TV, magazines, billboards, Comic books, and movies. (Mickey Mouse, Elvis, Cambell soup, etc)
One of the most famous Pop artists was Andy Warhol. My class saw many of his pictures and most of the pictures looked really unique because of all the colors, repetition and objects he used.
For this art project the whole class had to bring their favorite object (that they think is popular.) Most people brought their I Pods, MP3 players or cell phones.
The first thing that we did was drew our object on sketch paper. After it was okayed we got a piece of good paper to do it again where we went over it with felt tip marker. The next step is that we get that sheet copied on a printer four times so we have 3 new sheets to color. Then we will color every sheet of paper differently.
My friend Joey thought art was really exciting today and I agreed with him.
So that is the Pop art project my class did in art today.

On Tuesday it was "Mallet Madness" at Willowdale. In music class we practiced a steady beat on the xylophones, glockenspiels and the drums using mallets, drumsticks and even our hands.
Chris S. was so excited he said, "This is going to be awesome!"
Since there were twenty-six of these instruments we rotated so that everyone was able to play all three of them. I think the drums were, by far, the favorite. Charlie got to show off his band skills.
I think everyone had fun playing the percussion instruments even though many had some weird names. Maybe after a couple more practices in class one of us could play the glockenspiel for the talent show!?

Today, I will tell you about the exciting things we did and songs we sang in music class!
Miss Carlsen had us do rhythms today. She would first do a rhythm then we would have to repeat it. She also wrote four rhythms on the board and we clapped them forwards and backwards.
After that she divided us up into two groups. One group did it forwards and one did it backwards, then we switched groups.
"Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho,” is a song we have been singing.
Ally said,” We have been singing that song so much I know it word for word."
Later Miss Carlsen had us listen to a different version of, "Joshua Fit The Battle of Jericho." Then we listened to the song, "Freedom Train." Miss Carlsen told us that slaves used to sing it when the underground railroad was going to be used for an escape.
Today's music class was full of rhythms, songs, and the history of African American Music to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday.

Do you like to make up stories? Well I do. Speaking of stories we made one up today. Let's check it out.
Today after gym we went to the lobby and there was a surprise guest waiting for us. It was Rita the Storyteller! Everybody loves her! I bet you're wondering who she is. Rita comes to work with each grade every year. It was finally 5th grade's turn!
To help us make up the story Rita asked the whole 5 grade to ask and answer questions based on a short sentence with barely any details. After about 75 questions and answers and 30 minutes we finally ended our story and had created a masterpiece.
The story ended up being about a fat 8 year old Russian boy who got pushed down a well by his best friend on their way to catch fish, but he got back up safely thanks to the fire department in Ireland.
It was a funny story and a great way to practice adding details.
Today we had fun creating a story with Rita. We learned a lot and had a good time too.

What smells great, looks good, and tastes fantastic? A Potluck!
Today all of the fifth graders who didn't have any late assignments in December got to go to the huge selection potluck.
There were lots of great foods, such as pizza from Pizza Hut or Godfathers, Taco Bell soft tacos, sandwiches, and chicken from KFC. Mmmm the main dishes were good.
Other decisions we had to make is for sides and salads. Someone brought a blue Jell-O that had lots of strawberries in it and it was delicious too.There were good fruits and veggies to pick up.
There were four bottles of Mountain Dew, and many other great drinks such as Squirt, Dr. Pepper, and Coke.
There sure were a lot of chips! There were even some spicy Doritos, Cheetos, Lays potato chips and more.
When all the teachers started to smell the goodies, they came to see what we had to eat. Our gym teacher and her assistant came as well as all of the other teachers who were on lunch break.
“That was awesome!” Ahmed cheered after chomping on some carrots.
All of the fifth graders who came worked very hard to get to here. It tasted so good and all our hard work paid off.

We had a great time in Units today! We have been learning about the original 13 colonies. Even though it was a lot of writing, what we learned was pretty cool. We learned about some of the jobs people had, the founders of each colony and the reasons the colonies were founded. We even learned that only men that owned land could vote. After all the writing was over, almost everyone got with their partner and buckled down. Some of us even went to the library for information. We were collecting more data on our colony with our partners.
Today we also found that we had a quiz on our packets and notes for Friday. Ms. Sanborn got the laptops out so that we didn't have to wait for a class computer.
"I think the colony information collecting is fun, but I'm nervous about the quiz," said Jenny. Maybe other people feel the same as Jenny.
In conclusion this was the best Social Studies I've had this year.

New York, Virginia, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, South Carolina, North Carolina, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut! Wow! That’s a lot of colonies! It’s actually all 13 of them!
The reason I named all 13 colonies is because in Ms. Sanborn’s class today we got a partnered up and she assigned us one of the original 13 colonies and a worksheet. Sometime later this week in class we all are going to give a presentation about our colony with our partner, so we needed to begin researching today.
Kaitlyn said it was pretty fun. She also said that she enjoys doing projects like this.
Even though we didn’t get that much time to work on it, was still a pretty cool to start it.
I loved starting to learn all about one colony but I really look forward to learning all about the 13 colonies, how they started, who named them, and more. I hope you do too!

Today Mrs. Magstadt came in to talk about completing homework. Mrs. Magstadt is the Guidance Counselor for Willowdale.
First we talked about what homework was and why we had it, then she gave us a paper, which was a listening exercise, and it was easy.
Next she read some pages from a book called How to do Your Homework Without Barfing. We had some good laughs from it.
Lastly, we got into groups and discussed the consequences for doing and not doing homework. We listed them on big chart paper. It was fun to work in the groups. Our group thought of lots.
That is what happened for the time we had with Mrs. Magstadt today!

This week we began our new Social Studies unit. This unit is about the 13 Colonies.
To begin today’s lesson Ms. S drew name sticks and that person got to pick a page number. She then read about colonial life from the page the person picked. Nobody knew what topic they were going to pick! While she was reading, we had to take notes about life back then. We had to take ten notes.
The book’s name was, "If You Lived in Colonial Times." That was a very fun activity to learn about the 13 colonies.
For the remainder of Unit’s time we watched a video and finished taking notes.
Today’s colonial lesson was fun.

Today was a wonderful day because there were three performances in one great concert. The band, orchestra and Swing choir all performed in front of the whole school today.
Not all the band members played in the concert though only the saxophones. The three groups did a fantastic job. The choir sang songs like A Blessing, Everlasting Fruitcake, and Snow Day. Everyone was surprised when the last song (Snow Day) the swing choir threw cotton balls at people!
The orchestra played songs like Good King Wencelas, and others. They were good. Both fifth and fourth graders are in orchestra.
It was a good way to put us in the mood for break!