Create a Graph for Your Science Fair Project

While students aren't at this stage yet, I thought I'd let you know of this awesome resource after a previous parent asked me about it.

Once students have collected all of their data for their project, they can go to this website, enter their data, and VOILA you have it graphed!!  You can then print it out from home!  Students will either be graphing their data as a line graph (if they're measuring a change over a period of time) or a bar graph (if they're counting).  Mark this in your browser's "Favorites!"

 http://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/

Sea Camp Deposits

Just wanted to remind everyone that deposits for Sea Camp are due Friday, October 26th.  You may recall that forms were sent home a little over a week ago detailing the necessary information.  The trip to Sea Camp is April 3-5, 2013.  The amount of the deposit is $75 and it is non-refundable.  If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail Mr. Kolesnik.

Fearless Felix!

I'm sure most of you have seen this, but do you know what Felix Baumgartner did?  The 43 year old Austrian successfully completed a jump out of a capsule 24 miles (128,100 ft) about the New Mexico desert Sunday!  In doing so, he set the record for the highest human free fall (beating the previous record of 102,800 ft set by Orlando's own Joe Kittinger in 1960).  Baugmgartner became the first skydiver to break the speed of sound without the assistance of a craft.  During his fall, he reached a maximum velocity of 833.9 mph or Mach 1.24!!!

Study Jams and FCAT Explorer

Happy Monday to everyone!!  I just wanted to share some new sites to add to your "Favorites."  Scholastic Study Jams is a really neat site that has short videos and even quizzes on topics that we'll be covering this year in math and science!  This would be really helpful in reviewing for tests.  Sounds interesting?  You can visit Study Jams and find out for yourself!

Also, during "Meet the Teacher Night," your child's teacher should have gone over FCAT Explorer.  It's never too early to begin practicing for the "you know what!"  Students can use their login information that they use at school to practice both Math AND Science.  The really nice thing about FCAT Explorer is that it provides instant feedback in terms of correctness of an answer and students like it, because they can earn tokens to play games on the site.

Scientific Method for "Dummies"

Okay, the title of this post is a little misleading, but I thought it was funny.  Here is another useful piece of information that will prove useful as students continue to work on their science fair projects.
Scientific Method for Dummies

Tagxedo!

This thing is AWESOME!!  I just had to share it!  Word clouds are really popular now, and we'll be using them in the not too distant future.  I thought I'd give you a taste of what it looks like.  You can go to Tagxedo to check it out yourself!

Science Fair Project Guide

We thought it would make things easier if we made the guidelines and expectations available to you to keep handy by posting them on your fridge.  This will be a useful reference to keep handy as students progress through their projects.  Today, students were given a packet that included a rubric detailing how their research paper would be graded in addition to science fair project expectations and an example of a student's research paper and bibliography.  Mrs. Degnan will soon be going over the process of writing a bibliography with students when they are with her in media during specials.  If you have any questions, please feel free to contact your child's homeroom teacher.


Project Guide 1

COOL E-Learning Site

"Seek and ye shall find!"  It's amazing what's out there when you just spend a little time to look!  I was poking around trying to find some online math enrichment activities and...voila!!  I wanna give a BIG shout out to Mimi over at Fifth Grade Rocks Fifth Grade Rules for sharing this awesome site!  It's called e-Learning for Kids?   This site has fun video tutorials and activities/games for the children to practice.  It has just about everything like math, language arts, science, computer skills, health, and life skills.  It's definitely worth a look!