Today in math we did journal pages 406-408 about greatest common factors and least common multitudes and 425 (Math Box) in our math journals. W also checked yesterday’s pages in our journal.
Tonight we are supposed to study for the End of the Year math assessment tomorrow. (We all wonder what grade we will get.) I’m no math whiz, but I think I’ll do well on the test, but I’m not really excited about it!
That’s pretty much our typical math time.

Today in class we did many fun things, but I must choose one of the subjects so I will tell you about the exciting time we had in Junior Achievement.
Mrs. Z’s daughter came in and told us about where she works and what she does. After she told us about her job she asked us raise if we wanted to own our own company. Many of us raised his hands. She called on Charlie who wanted to own his own restaurant. From there we did an activity where he had to hire lots of people and then finally his one restaurant got so BIG he got a partnership then he even became a corporation and sold stock! In the end every one got a sticker to show they were part of the “company.” It was fun and that was a good opener to all the words we learned today. We also did some reading and couple of activities in our booklet.
Ally said, "Junior Achievements was very fun and exciting.”
One of the other activities was when Ms. S did a good interview and a bad interview with Mrs. Malick. After they did one so did Mason And Nikki.
This is what we did in Junior Achievement today. We have to wait two more days until there is more fun and exciting activities.

In school today all the 4th and 5th graders met in the gym at 3pm to finish the track and field day awards from Friday.
Today I got 6th place ribbon from the 200m race. There were many more events that had ribbons that needed to be passed out like the longest for long jump was about 7 ft.. The reason the ribbon/awards were postponed was because we ran out of time in the middle because we only had one bus for all six classes.
We ended the awards ceremony with a talk about all school field day on Wednesday. Too bad there aren’t awards on that day!

Do you know what the Willowdale fifth and fourth graders did today? Well, they went to Millard West High School and had their annual Track and Field Day.
We left for Millard West around 9:00am and didn’t get back until about 3:00pm! When we got back they gave out awards for the different events.
Starting around 9:30, the first running events for both 4th and 5th graders who signed up were the 400 run, the 200 run, and the 60 run. For the last running events we did the relay races and the coed races, which was with two boys and two girls running together. All the running events took us ALL morning, then we had lunch.
Later, after lunch we had our “field” events. Our three choices were baseball throw, soccer kick and long jump. After those we had fun games three legged races, tug of war, and shoe kick. I do have to congratulate our class on winning the Tug-of-War competition against all the other fifth grade classes and the fourth grade class winners!
Boy was that a fun but tiring day!

Today for art we made masks. They weren’t your average masks, but some cool ones made out of paper mache and those plastic gallon milk containers.
The paper mache was a little tricky. We had to cut it into strips then put it in water and then stick it on the milk containers.
Mitch said, “This is kind of weird.”
It took layer after layer to make the base. We found out this is just the beginning of our fun project. We will still need to paint it, but they need to dry.
This was a hard and messy project, but we made it through. It will be interesting to see everyone’s creativity. Painting them next week will be a blast!

Today was a blast! We went to the YMCA for the Fifth Grade Farewell party.
The first thing that we did was take a whole grade picture. There were about 12 cameras going off at one time! Flashes everywhere! I was half blind when we were done.
The second thing that we did was, we ate lunch. There seemed like there was enough food for a million people! We had pizza, chips, a BIG sandwich, snacks, and so much more!
After that we played class vs. class tug-a-war! I was in the middle of my group so I got dog piled at the end of each turn. It still hurts.
Then we went inside to find all the fun things to do like, swimming in the swimming pool, playing basketball, or rock climbing. The pool was great because of the slide and it was warm. The rock climbing was unbelievable because it was so high. I felt like I was a mile up when I looked down. The basketball court was as shiny as your teeth when you get home from the dentist! It was so fun to play on. Though we were there three hours it went by so quickly it seemed like only a few minutes.
What a day! We did and ate so much; I wish I could stay longer, at the Y, not 5th grade!
Thanks to all the moms who did all the work!

Today in science we had to take a killer three unit, three chapter test.
The test was all about Space and Technology everything we have been learning about for the past month or so. This test was a hard one. It was over the three chapters we did in science. The chapters talked about some of the history in technology. It also went over subject like stars, comets, black holes and stuff like that.
The test was short, but some questions were hard. Most of it was multiple choice, but there were three write your answers. Luckily nice Ms. S let us use our books! Hopefully this is the last day of science and I know it’s the last test for science.

Today in math we learned how to find volume. Boy it was a great way to “fill up time!” That’s funny because volume is the amount of space inside objects, we say volume fills it up!
First, Ms. Sanborn taught us two ways to find volume that were pretty easy! The first way was to multiply the base (b) times width/height (w/h) times height. (V=bxwxh) The second way is to find the area of the base of the figure (B), then multiply that times the height of the figure. (V=Bxh) Now how do I know all of this? Well, we did two pages in our math book together and we also did a link, all about volume to practice!
Volume is a lot of multiplying but at least we can use two different ways!

For the past month our class has been learning about space, the planets, the moon, and more. The last lesson was about the moon so everyone in my class made a creative Sketchy on their Palm about the moon phases. Today we got to use the ELMO and see what each other had done.
Some people did interesting facts about the moon for extra credit. Some people had to make theirs on paper and then the rest of us used our handhelds. The people that did it on a handheld had our animated. (That’s was Sketchy does).
The moon phases are New Moon, Crescent Moon, First Quarter, and Full Moon. Do you know what a First Quarter is? Well, it's half of the entire moon that you can see.
I thought it was cool to see everyone's Sketchy about the moon phases. Everyone uses different ideas for the same assignment!

Today during Reading time we met in our book groups. Each group (there are six total) has a different book so we all discussed the different things that we had written about, about what we had read from the day before. Besides that we discussed if we liked the book, or if we didn't like it.
For example one of the books is Maria’s Comet. It is about a girl who has nine brothers, sisters and her father is an astronomer. That is my group. I think that it is a very good book for reading and think every child should read this book because it seems to have a good message.
After we shared we read more of the book, wrote about those pages and began working on a project we wanted to do to share with the class on Friday. Ours is going to be cool because we are drawing pictures to retell the story.
Now you know a little about what we did during Reading time today.

Today we went to gym. It was lots of fun, but really tiring.
First, we had to run the pacer for 5 minutes and that was the
tiring part! I made it all the way. Then we lined up and Mrs. Lindemen put us into two teams. We played a game called Ball Jail that was really really fun!
Ball Jail is when you have to throw the ball at the team on the other side of the basketball half court line and if you hit someone then they have to go to the other end. While we were playing Mrs. Lindemen called us each over by name to do pushups for a test. I wasn’t really good at it, but I got 15 which is better than nothing right?
As we were playing I hit lots of people, but not that hard because I didn’t want to hurt anyone or get in trouble, which I really don’t want. As the game went on I got lots of people out and I only went to jail once, but got out in 5 seconds.
Then I was really sad because the 4th graders came in so that meant that we had to go back to our classrooms and do more work! No one wanted to leave gym especially me because of the fun!

New teachers, new people, and a new school, oh my!
Today all fifth graders from all around Millard went to the Middle Schools they will be going to next year. We went there to see what it will be like next year! We got to eat there, travel to classrooms, meet teachers and other students, and check out the other parts of the school we will be using.
I did learn today that going to Russell or any middle school is going to be frightening because there’s going to be new teachers, big hallways, new kids and so much more! But at least it’s all going to be horribly new for ALL of us.
Today I learned that the sixth grade teachers are going to teach us all new things. One thing I look forward to is meeting the new people! It’s going to be sweet, but I'm going to have to learn everyone's name. Everyone is going to get to have new friends.
The thing I don’t look forward to is this school seems so huge and so do the hallways. They seem really different from Willowdale’s. They are going to be a big change.
''This school is huge!'' One kid shouted.
In conclusion, Russell going to have new people, teachers, and adventures! I can’t wait!

Everyone was freaking today and why you ask? It’s because today was the last day to work on our partner science PowerPoints.
We’ve had a week to work on them and I know it seems like forever, but when you’re working on them time flies and I mean really fast.
Some people got finished, but then some people didn't and they had to work on it during studyhall. The rest of us either might have to stay after or come in early tomorrow morning.
We are going to start sharing them tomorrow after our field trip or on Monday, so I hope they get their PowerPoints done soon.
And that’s what we did in Ms. Sanborn's class today! Well I better go because I have to work on mine!

Today we started a new art project. This wonderful, but sticky art project is called the glue relief project.
First before we could start our new art project we had to do a rough draft, like always. Then Ms. Sanborn would give us our final draft paper. For this art we could draw anything that we wanted it just couldn’t be too complicated. People did things like beaches, flowers and flags.
On the final draft paper though we had to sketch the design on it first and then go over your sketch with sticky Elmer’s glue.
So today we basically only did half of the art project, next week we will paint inside the glue then we will get to roll brayers over the piece to get a whole new piece! I can’t wait!
I’m so “reliefed” to be done with the Glue relief art!

At the beginning of Science today the class had to read Lesson 4, Chapter 17 in our science books. We are studying the Solar System. Our assignment was to take 5 notes on the Lesson and also draw one or pictures in our notes. Do you think that sounds hard? It wasn’t!
Next, the whole class went to the computer lab for the rest of our Science time. We had to finish our PowerPoints on Space. Today we had to finish the rest of our projects like putting in the backgrounds, sounds, transitions, or even typing. We had to get ready for people to present them on Friday.
For our Power Points we got to choose what we wanted to do as long as it had to do with the something about our Solar system like Black holes or stars. All my partner and I had to do was finish our questions and answers and then add the background.
That is what we did in “Super Science,” took notes and finished working on our PowerPoints.

Today the chalkboard said that we were going to a Presentation at 10:25? I wondered was it was all about. I found out we were headed to the gym to hear a guy named Bruce tell us about volcanoes and once the 4th and 5th grades were in the gym he began to show us his presentation.
Bruce and his wife, Tass, have traveled and biked all over the world to see tons of volcanoes and also stuff that happened because of erosion. They have been rock climbing up huge rocks, hiked up many mountains, and even climbed up several volcanoes.
''The pictures were really cool,'' said Alex. They had pictures of lava, seals, huge volcanoes and so much more!
They must be in great shape to do all the rock climbing, hiking and biking. The whole presentation was fantastic and the hour went by so quickly!
At the end he told us about their web site, which is named imagesoftheworld.com. He even answered some questions. Although the hour went quickly I learned a bunch about trying new things, volcanoes, new places and their journeys!