Trick or treat!

Dixie and I spent two hours passing out candy on October 31st! It was the first time in years that we had Halloween on Halloween! If you don't know who we are, I'm Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus, and Dixie is my sidekick Liz the lizard. She will tough out wearing the costume, because she knows the kids will ask to pet her. They always do.

Halloween

Ah, the anticipation of the party was almost too much for some in the class, but the time finally arrived to change into our costumes and party! The class wanted to parade through several classes, so we were walking for about 20 minutes. When we returned to the class Mrs. Barningham, Mrs. Spinler, and Mrs. Filiatreault were waiting to serve the food and supervise the games. Nic and Mike were the winners of the mummy wrap. I think everyone had a great time. I know I did!A huge thank you goes out to the families who sent supplies for our party, and to the moms who came to help!

Rollerskating

We roller skated in gym for the past two weeks. I took some pictures, but the kids kept moving! So, the photos may not be as clear as they could be. I have to keep working on that!

Hosting Mr. Hashiguchi

On Saturday, Mr. Hashiguchi spent the day with my family and me. I picked him up and took him on a drive through Racine by the lake. We headed to the lighthouse, and it was really a beautiful day to go see it.
Jun liked the geese and wandered over to a big flock of them by the lighthouse. He kept getting into their space, so they took off in flight. I thought Jun might enjoy an old fashioned hamburger place, so we headed to Kewpee's, but it was closed for maintenance! We ended up at Tacos El Rey. Jun said the food was oishi, delicious!After that we headed to my sister's house and set out for our afternoon adventure. First stop: the Parkside theatre. My brother-in-law builds the sets, so we thought Jun might enjoy seeing the set for the current production, THE FOREIGNER. Having seen that we headed to Jerry Smith's Pumpkin Farm.Then we headed to Hawthorne Hollow for a walk in the woods to view the beautiful color. The Halloween store was the last stop before we headed to my sister's house to grill out. It was a long day, but we had fun. I hope Jun did too!

Community Service Blanket Project

Today my class worked with parents, staff, and other family members to tie blankets that will be donated to Women and Children's Horizons of Kenosha. We worked together for the afternoon to complete 12 blankets. In the pictures you may notice that some of the children are wearing hats. We had a fund raiser, called "Hats On", to raise funds to fight Childhood Cancer. Sponsored by our Student Senate, students paid $1 or more for the priviledge of wearing a hat today. The school raised $1600 with a good portion raised by the 6th grade. They had a competition and the class that raised the least had to do the Chicken Dance for the rest of the sixth grade. What a great day! We helped by making blankets and contributing to a great cause. Now that's community service!

Physical and Chemical Changes

Our exploratory today helped us learn more about mixtures, solutions, chemical changes and physical changes. Bobby and Jon separate sand from iron filings with a magnet. This is a mixture because the items can be separated and they stay the same kind of matter when they are mixed.Tate, Cam, and Jasmine separate items into the bins. Again this is a mixture.
Our final mixture station had the students creating their own mixture of food. Haley, Brook and Mike seem to be enjoying this station!

Applesauce and pancakes!

We are studying changes in matter, and today we demonstrated those changes by doing a little cooking. First we peeled and cored apples to make some applesauce (physical change). Then we cooked the apples until they were soft. They turned brown during that stage (chemical change). Bobby is demonstrating the apple corer/peeler/slicer while Logan is breaking her apple into the slow cooker. We all washed our hands BEFORE beginning. Any change in size, shape or state of matter without changing the kind of matter is a physical change. Bobby is peeling, changing the shape, and changing the size of the apple. We also mixed pancakes (physical change), and then we put the batter on the hot griddle. Bubbles started to form. When a new matter (gas) is formed, the change is chemical. In addition, the pancakes started to look brown. Change in color will also indicate a chemical change.
Here Brooke and Trenton wait patiently for the chemical changes to be complete so she could make a physical change in the pancake by biting into it! When the pancakes get chewed up in your mouth, a chemical change occurs when your saliva starts breaking the food down into something you can digest! Science is exciting and delicious!
Yea! It's eating time.
Christine enjoys the physical and chemical changes that occurred in the applesauce!