Today in science we did an amazing experiment.
We've been studying the different kinds of energy. The first thing we did was get into 6 groups. After getting a jar 1/2 full of sand, a thermometer, and a paper we got to work. Sticking the thermometer in the sand we got 65 degrees.
Then we closed the jar and took turns shaking it for 10 minutes. My group got 75 degrees. My group said the temperature rose because of the friction between the sand and jar.
That’s what we did in science.

Consequences, consequences are they bad or are they good, or can they be both?
Well I’ll tell you because we learned all of that in counseling today. Our very own school counselor Ms. Magstadt came to our class to teach us about consequences.
First we got to get into groups and practically make our own plays/comics. We had to read how the comic first started then we wrote or drew how it would end.
After we got done with doing that we went straight into sharing them.
It was a fun way to practice consequences in counseling class today.

Today we played a current events game called Newsbowl. We play it almost every Wednesday.
Newsbowl is based on the news from Nebraska, the world, Arts and Entertainment, sports, National news, and more. The Topic of the Week today was President’s Day. This week’s Topic of the Week questions were a little hard. We had a few easy questions and hard questions from the different categories we chose. One of the questions was about the new movie, Bridge to Terabeathia.
Ms. Sanborn hasn’t told us what team won yet, so I'm sure we will find out soon. Today wasn’t very exciting, but Newsbowl was fun.
It was fun playing and learning from Newsbowl today. I’m glad I read Time for Kids and listen to the news.

Today, two kids from the Super Students’ class got to go to the Wrobotics. It has a silent W on the front, but it is actually pronounced, Robotics. The silent W on the front stands for Willowdale, so in full the program is called Willowdale Robotics.
The two people that got to go to this Wrobotics session, were Montana and Keanu. There were also three kids from Ms. Everts’ class got to go, and they were, Peyton, Richard, and Mark who showed up late.
Our teacher's name is Mrs. Bean, and she seemed to be really trying to challenge all of us in the Wrobotics class. At first we went over all of the different names of the Legos, and there were some really hard names to remember. There sure are a lot of names. A few of the names that we had to learn were Beams and Bricks.
After we went over all of the names, we were allowed to open a program online, and go through the steps of building a TankBot. I was on almost my last step, when I learned that I had messed up on the second step, so I could not put on my tracks. I had to take my whole robot apart, then fix it and build it correctly.
In our class, Mrs. Bean also taught us how to set the programs on the robots, and to make it do lot of awesome things. It was possible to make a light turn on for any set number of seconds, or make it go in a circle, or go forwards or backwards. Lots of us got messed up on this part because we forgot to tell the RCX boxes to stop running the program.
The RCX boxes are little boxes that hold six AA batteries in them, and have the connectors to the motors on them.
All in all, it was an incredibly fun session of the Willowdale Robotics, and I hope that more kids get to enjoy this fun program with Mrs. Bean.

I don't know if you were ready to party, but I sure was! Today we had our Valentine’s Day party.
In Ms. Sanborn’s class we started out our party with an estimation jar guess game. We all wrote down our guesses of how many candy hearts there were in each jar. In the jars (boys/girls) there were 150 candy hearts.
After that we went into the gym and played two brilliant games. The first game we played in the gym each team got 5 large fluffy dice and we took turned turns tossing them at a board with different sized hearts cut out it to earn points for your team.
The second game we played had the exact same amount of dice and this time we rolled them to earn points for your team.
Lastly we went back to the room for the treats, open our Valentines and make craft penguins.
We had an excellent party and the moms who planned it did an incredible job! Thanks!

Physical science is a blast! It is the best unit yet! There is a lot of vocabulary. In this unit friction, work, force, and motion are some of the vocabulary words.
Friction is a contact force that opposites the motion of an object. Motion is a change of position. Work is the movement of an object through the use of force. Force is a push or pull. Gravity is a non-contact force that pulls objects towards each other.
In my opinion we all have to have friction or we couldn’t stop when we were running!

Today we started learning from a new chapter in science. Guess what number the chapter is... give up? ........it is 13!
This chapter is all about how things move. Well, did you know that even if you think you're not moving you are? If you are touching something that connects to the earth, and we all are, we often forget the earth is moving all the time ...well then, so are you.
Not only that, but we got to watch a movie starring Bill Nye the Science Guy.
We were only able to read through Lesson 1 in Chapter 13, but my head already hurts, does yours?
I think I'm going to have a hard time in this chapter, there is a lot more information and a lot more to learn!

Card reads:x squared. I rolled a 2 and a 3 which is 6! That means I have 36 points! Yes!
Today in math we played a game called First to 100. It was terrific!
To begin play, you roll two die and then multiply them together. Next you pick a yellow card which have math problems that have numbers and an x somewhere in it. So when you draw the card you replace the x with number you got from after multiplying your die (your product). Then you answer the question. Your write your answer on a piece of paper and that is your score. The other person checks your work on a calculator. You get three times or passes to use a calculator.
The object of the game is the first person to get 100 points wins the game. So as you can see we had a wonderful time in Math today. I never knew you could learn and have so much fun at the same time. That is what we did in Magnificent Math, a new game.

Today we had a math test, but not just any math test the sixth grade placement math test, the Orleans Hanna.
The test was really challenging because nobody had time to study or even knew what to study! Plus we only had thirty-five minutes to finish the fifty mind-boggling questions.
The weirdest part was the beginning thirty questions when they used super challenging problems like 3! *4, which I had no clue what to do to find the answer until I had read the lesson on the page right next to it.
The next twenty questions was a review. They had graphs and reviewed charts. That was probably the easiest part!
Boy am I glad the test is over. I hope I did well.

Today we sang “Are You Sleeping,” than talked about all the different parts in the song. We talked a long about it if you ask me. We also sang and talked about the “Star Spangled Banner,” which was so fun.
I think my favorite song was “Star Spangled Banner”. The music teacher, Miss Carlsen told us to sing up.
The rest of classtime we had to talk about how to behave in class because some of the students in here have been misbehaving a lot lately.
We did a lot of talking and singing today in class.

Today in Math we had the mind-puzzling Midyear test! First, Ms. Sanborn let us study for a few minutes. Then, it was testing time!
Mason said, "It was very hard."
I agree, it WAS hard! For example, the test had questions about fractions, angles, addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc.
Which is everything we learned in math so far this year! Luckily though like most of our tests it only had three pages!
So, like I said, we had the mind-puzzling Midyear math test today and I guess this is good-bye!

Multiplication signs, minus signs, and plus signs oh my! We have our humongous Midyear math test Monday morning!
We need to study, study, study for the upcoming test on Monday the 5th! It’s over all the things we've studied so far this year. So today we review things like plotting, multiplying with decimals, adding fractions and so much more.
As Ms. S talked about the upcoming test Brandon said, ''Oh no!'' in his high pitched voice. Then there was a little bit of commotion and in a little bit it was soundless.
So in conclusion we reviewed for the huge test on Monday that’s going to be very hard.

Today at about 3:05pm we had a very short, but exciting assembly. I will tell you all about it.
Well, it started out when I heard that we had to go to an assembly right then. I was wondering what we were in store for. It turned out it was about this month’s Kid of Character pillar, Caring.
During the assembly one of the Student Council kids read a book about giving hearts to someone. The other kids acted out each page in groups of two.
Like on one page, if you care you should give someone a hug or smile. Another example is if you care you should just help around the house or neighborhood!
At the end of the assembly they also gave us paper hearts to give to someone who you care about.
Once I got back to the classroom I asked Andy what he
thought of the assembly and he said, "It was short, but fun!"
I can't wait to see what they have in store for us at next month’s Kid of Character Assembly!

Wednesday equals art day! Every Wednesday is art day for us! Today in art we got ready for Valentine's Day by learning about the artist Jim Dine, who has some pictures with hearts. Then we made some of our own.
After looking at his artwork and learning about him we began our art project by tracing hearts on construction paper. The class had to take turns using the heart cut outs since there weren’t enough to go around.
We got to decide how many hearts we wanted to trace. It had to be 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, or 12 hearts. After we made our number choice, each heart had to have at least two colors in it. The class voted whether we would color our project with colored pencils or craypas and guess which one was the winner? It was the colored pencils.
Overall, the art project was superb. I think they will all look great once they are completed.

Today we did math until 10 o’clock, then we headed to the library/computer lab where everyone was wondering what we were doing. Everyone began guessing, but when we got there we saw Mrs. Greenwald and everyone sat down.
After a while she started to tell us about “Gaggle,” the emailing and interactive site for Willowdale.
She went over the rules like she said that there was no bullying and no cussing, which goes with the no bad language rule at school, but I was really shocked when she said we couldn’t use abbreviations like lol or omg like we use on IM.com.
Gaggle can be used to email your friends or teachers at your school, but we can only send messages to 4th and 5th graders. I think that’s fine because I will only send messages to my friends that are in 5th grade!
Gaggle is going to be really fun and helpful! Mrs. G said if we start typing something here at school and need to finish it at home we just use our Gaggle account! There is something I forgot to tell you. I forgot to mention that whatever we say or type on Gaggle there is a person including Mrs. Greenwald or Ms. S checks. That way we won’t say anything bad or threaten people.
I can’t wait to start typing in my new Gaggle account, maybe I should have used it to type this report so I could have tested it out! Next time! Well that’s what the mysterious ten o’clock computer lab mystery was, Gaggle!