What an interesting essential question, and like all topics we cover in the fifth grade, we like to learn it through interactivity and fun. Today in science, we defined energy and listened to a catchy song from the 1950s all about this physical science topic. Here it is for those of you interested.
This was followed by some interesting examples of potential and kinetic energy. Vielleux Crew Kids, see if you can think of some examples of these other than the ones we came up with in class. Wait until tomorrow when we take a look at this:
And as a special challenge, I would love for the fifth graders to create their own videos of potential and kinetic energy! Anyone? Anyone?
Sound is out first form of energy we will discuss. On Thursday, we will have a guest teacher from VINS coming to lead us through some inquiry activities. We've also assigned a 2 week project to create an instrument using household materials (please don't buy ANYTHING... just use what you can find around the house). My junk drawer alone could furnish a junk instrument orchestra.
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The new session of reading groups is underway. All fifth graders will remain in their homeroom classes until April vacation in order to focus on nonfiction reading and informational text. This fits in nicely with our unit on Energy and our upcoming Screen Free Week (more info to come about that).
In writing, we are building our knowledge about persuasive writing through mini-lessons, read aloud and real world examples and will work our way up to writing a persuasive letter about television watching and screen time.
