1st Mystery Skype of 2014

On Tuesday, my class participated in their first Mystery Skype of the school year.  If you are unfamiliar with Mystery Skype, the concept is simple: two classes Skype with each other and try to figure out each other's location by asking only yes/no questions and using maps.  Students must keep up with "clues" they are given, narrow down possible locations, and guess the correct state and city (and sometimes the correct school--although we didn't get that far this time).  This geography activity is perfect for helping my students master their map skills and usually takes around 20 minutes to complete.

Here are the jobs I gave my students:
Greeter--This student greeted the other class politely and got the "game" up and running.  He/she then joined the Think Tank.
Inquirers--These two students asked yes/no questions of the other class and answered questions from the other class.  They sat in front of the computer camera the entire Skype call. 
Clue Keepers--These two students kept up with information from the other class and wrote clues down on the dry erase board.
Think Tank--A group of students who studied maps and worked together to create questions for the Inquirers. 
Runner--This student kept communication going between the Think Tank and the Inquirers.
Photographer--This student took pictures and video of all the groups/happenings.  He/she eventually joined the Think Tank.
Computer Mappers--These two students used the classroom computer to search maps online.  They worked closely with the Think Tank.

 

For their first Mystery Skype, the students did a wonderful job!  After the Skype session, we had a time of reflection.  I asked the students two questions: "What went well?" and "What can be improved?"  

 

I have to say, I agree with their assessment:

 

What went well?

• We knew our cardinal/intermediate directions.
• We were good sports.
• We were cooperative.
• We communicated well.
• We tried to create good/effective questions.
• Clue Keepers worked very well together and did a great job.

What can be improved?

• We need to stay in our assigned spots.
• Our volume needs to be lower.
• We need to get better at using Google Earth and online maps to find locations.

To see a brief video of this session, click here:  1st Mystery Skype of 2014-2015



For more info, see my posts about previous Mystery Skype sessions: CLICK HERE.

Landform Projects 2014

In geography, we recently finished our unit on landforms.  Last week, the students completed their in-class landform project.  I paired the children up, assigned each pair a landform to research, and then they had to construct the landform in class and give a 2-minute presentation on it.  The students researched information for homework, using THIS HANDOUT.  The project was graded using THIS GRADE SHEET. 

 

This year, I decided to have the students build their landforms inside pizza boxes.  Last year, we used cookie sheets.  While the cookie sheets worked okay, the pizza boxes allowed more depth and could easily be moved around.  A local pizzeria near our school generously donated the boxes for us to use. 

 

Construction time:



Okay, so I know that the grade sheet says, "A paragraph should be written in cursive with the following included..." but we typed the information instead using the iPads.  Then, we just printed the documents from the iPads.

Presentation time:

Peninsula (Baja Peninsula, to be exact)

 

Archipelago

Delta

Strait

Plateau

My friends from New Mexico corrected me--"Mesa."

No matter the name, they did a fantastic job!

Isthmus

Glacier

This creative duo decided that their glacier should move!  Of course, right?  They cut a line in the pizza box and built their glacier around a popsicle stick.  They somehow used wax paper and Mod Podge as well.  When they pulled on the popsicle stick beneath the box, the glacier moved slightly.  So cool!

I was so impressed with this year's landform projects!

 

P.S.  On the lid of the box, the students were required to have a picture of their assigned landform and a map--showing where their "famous" landform example is located.

 

 

Week 5 (September 16-20)

This week, we celebrated two birthdays and those students brought in delicious treats to share.  We had cupcakes and individual trail mix "cups":

On Friday, a child brought in Munchkins from Dunkin' Donuts (just for fun), so we enjoyed those as well.  Finally, PSO delivered cinnamon bread to all the teachers:

Whew!  I need to learn some self-control or else I'll gain about 20 pounds this year!

I received a surprise in the mail early in the week--10 small boxes of Kleenex from teacherlists.com.  I had entered my school supply list on their website back in August and was sent the Kleenex as a thank you.

We learned about punctuation this week in grammar.  Our school uses the Shurley Grammar curriculum, which is scripted and can be a little dry.  I am NOT a fan of scripted curricula, so I like to add my own little flair to the program and use supplemental materials.  I am working on a fun, culminating activity to wrap up our unit on punctuation.  I'll post about it in a couple of weeks, when it takes place.  I can't wait!   

To open our unit and jog my students' memories, I read aloud Punctuation Takes a Vacation by Robin Pulver (Grades: K-5).  I love this cute little book!

In geography, we recently moved on from our map skills unit and are currently learning about landforms.  Even though we've moved on, we are still using latitude/longitude to plot active hurricanes in the Atlantic.  I invited a speaker to our class and he spoke to the 5th graders about hurricanes.  He graduated from FSU with a PhD in geography and uses statistics when studying hurricanes.  He shared with us about his experience of joining Hurricane Hunters and flying through Hurricane Isaac!  The kids loved his videos and stories!

 

The students began their landform projects this week.  I paired the children up and assigned a landform for them to research.  I assigned fjord, delta, strait, plateau, bay, glacier, and isthmus.  They had to discover what the landform is; how it is formed; a famous example and its location; the flora and fauna that is typically found on the landform; and what the weather is like on the landform.  The groups completed this project in class and I love that you can tell that a bunch of 10-11 year olds constructed the landforms:

The students will share their landform in a 2-3 minute presentation next week.  They will also point out their famous example on a map and I'll project a picture of their example so the students can see. 

The students had a great time working on this project:

Click Here to see the grade sheet for this project.

Week 4 (September 9-13)

We had our first geography test on Tuesday, so I decided to prep the students on Monday with a review game, originally called "Stinky Feet Review Game."  I got the idea from Pinterest.  I divided the class into two teams and took turns asking each team a question.  When they got the question right, one student from the group was asked to come to the board and randomly select a Post-It note.  On it was a point value--either a positive or negative number!  That's the stinky part of the game.  I added or subtracted scores as we went along, and the kids had a blast playing this game.  Next time, I'll have the team with the lowest score be the "winner."  I plan to mix it up each time we play.   

One of the responsibilities of the 5th grade students is to raise and lower the flag each day.  On Tuesday, the 5th graders were trained for flag duty.  We had four sixth-grade students train our 5th graders.  The 6th graders did a fabulous job!

 And our 5th graders caught on quickly.

On Wednesday, we got a new document camera for our classroom:

I battled a cold all week and hardly had a voice.  By Thursday, I was in a fog.  I came to school, even though I felt horrible, and was surprised with a cup of chicken noodle soup from a student in the other 5th grade class!  It was delicious!

I enjoyed it at home because I was too sick to stay at school.  A substitute came at 11 a.m.

I got some rest and tried it again the next day.  I still wasn't feeling my best, but I hate missing school.

This week, in geography, we learned about the five themes of geography.  I shared a silly video (by teacher James White) to start the lesson and grab the students' attention:

We did a group activity and completed two graphic organizers.  Here's one:

We also learned the silly mnemonic device of "My Hand Really Likes Pizza" to remember the five themes: Movement, Human-Environment Interaction, Regions, Location, and Place.  We traced one of our hands and wrote a theme name on each finger.

 

The kids were so sweet and well-behaved this week while I was sick.  I decided that they should be treated, so on Friday we all enjoyed popsicles: