Gotta Keep Reading

Don't miss this video that we all enjoy watching and singing along with!

http://joebustillos.com/2010/02/02/gotta-keep-reading-ocoee-middle-school-video/

A Sweet Valentine's Day

This year on Valentine's Day we celebrated with sweet cards and delicious ice-cream sundaes. We also played February Bingo and made a beaded heart craft. Holidays are so much fun!

100th Day of School

Friday, February 5th was our 100th day of school! We celebrated by wearing t-shirts with 100 of something on them, and by wearing glasses cut into the shape of 100. We also... played Hershey Kiss hunt, listed 100 of our favorite foods, and wrote about what the world will be like in 100 years.

MOSH Field Trip

We had a GREAT time on our field trip to MOSH (the Museum Of Science and History)! First we learned about the stars and the drinking gourd in the planetarium and then we had an hour of free time to explore the museum. Our favorites included the human body exhibits and the amaze-ing sea exhibit. Before we left we went to the Science 101 show and learned about the states of matter: gas, liquid, solid, and plasma!

The Human Body

To culminate our unit on the human body, the kids worked in groups of three to create a lifesize diagram and then cut and pasted a brain, lungs, heart, and stomach inside. Next they created a concept map around each organ and system (eg. skeletal system). Finally they added any other important information they could remember.

Today We Made Blood

To show our class the consistency and make up of blood we mixed the following candy together:

red blood cells = red hots = 44% of our blood

white blood cells = white jelly beans = 1/2 of a % of our blood

platelets = sprinkles = 1/2 of a % of our blood

plasma = Karo syrup = 55% of our blood

The kids enjoyed visualizing each part of their blood and understanding the proportions and purposes of each.

The Digestive System

Today in science we used a papertowel roll to represent our esophagus. We wrote the word mouth up at the top opening and then taped a plastic baggie to the bottom. We wrote the word stomach on the baggie. When we tried to put a cracker in the top hole it didn't fit so we used our hands to represent chewing and let pieces of the cracker fall through the esophagus and into the stomach. There was a little stomach juice (water) already in the baggie to help the food digest. We used our fingers to move it gently around as the stomach muscles churn. This could not have looked more realistic! One student didn't break up her cracker enough and it got stuck in her esophagus. Talk about a teachable moment... that's why you have to chew your food before you swallow it! She was able to cough it back up and chew it more before she swallowed it.