Levee Lab

Students had to construct a levee to protect their town with a small neighborhood of houses.  They needed to build to prepare for three phases of flooding, with each phase stronger than the last.  

Only one town made it without flooding damage!  We looked at what changes needed to be made to have a more effective levee.  Some feedback was the levee needed to be taller, houses needed to be built on higher ground, a river might have helped with overflow, and better use of sandbags.  

Partnering with LMS 8th Graders: Career Corral

Fifth grade students were invited to see eighth graders' projects on Lanier High's Academies and how it relates to a career that interests them.  We learned a lot about classes at LHS and the academies as well as what type of experience and degrees are needed for certain career paths.  

We look forward to seeing more work from LMS in the future!

Hour of Code: National Computer Science Week!

This week students participated in Hour of Code with our class and also helped our Kindergarten project buddies and added code to Robot Turtles.

  In January, our class will begin a Google CS First club for coding and music and sound!  

Be on the lookout for more updates after our break!

Partnership with LMS!

Students shared their genetics projects with Mrs. K's fourth grade class and Lanier Middle's teachers (6th grade and connections) as well as Mr. Hamilton and Mrs. Haddock.  We are excited about this partnership with LMS and every fifth grader is viewing and assessing 8th grade projects Friday!

Skype Call with the National WWII Museum!

Mrs. Fuentes' class partnered with our class for WWII book clubs, and it was Skype-a-Thon week, so we thought we would continue frontloading WWII content through an interactive Skype session called "Get in the Scrap" with the National WII Museum in New Orleans!  This session was full of math conversions, recycling, and kids' role during WWII all tied to weapons and supporting the war effort.  We even got to tour some of the museum with our host!  We are looking forward to partnering more with the museum!

Engineering and Design with Cubelets

Students worked in small groups to solve engineering problems with Cubelets.  They recorded their thinking on a Google Doc and took pictures of their trials throughout the process.  Students' conversations were noisy, collaborative, and gave many possible solutions!  

How Microorganisms are Harmful Lab

Students wrote and took pictures of their observations during the lab.  We compared notes after sharing "germs" with two other friends and tried to figure out who was the person/people infecting our class.  It was a lot of fun and we learned that even if you didn't meet with a person, it didn't mean you were safe from their germs because germs travel and are shared! 

Genetics Presentation Day

Genetics Project Creation: Crunch Time!

Students have been diligently working on the creation phase of projects this past week!  We have groups preparing for interviews, art displays, 3D models, layering music with phone interviews, and editing videos.

 Two  fifth grade groups collaborated for an interview with Mr. Hausknecht, a kidney transplant recipient.  

We all learned so much from him!

 Preparing for the interview: sound check, lighting, chair placement

 Cancer cells

 Editing interview with Luke's grandmother and Dr. Niti Patel from Northside Hospital

 Working on their blog

 Editing commercial for their product

Making a 3D model of the inside of a conjoined twins' heart.