November Has Come and Gone!

With the changing of seasons comes the changing of our classrooms too.  Some of our friends have relocated to other schools and a few of us have switched up homerooms, but the one thing that will not change is that learning is taking place in the 5th grade!

November was full of Science Discovery and our Thanksgiving Feast.  For years I have had students all bring in one assigned can of food, then we mix it all up into crock pots and have our very own Stone Soup (of course we don't use the stones, and because of dietary restrictions - I've switched to using vegetarian frozen sausage crumbles)... The biggest surprise to children is that I too can cook :-)

My biggest regret  about our Stone Soup Thanksgiving Feast is that no one took any photographs for me to post here (I was busy flipping grilled cheese sandwiches!)

We started off the month of December diving hard into matter, the phases of matter, the properties of matter, and the changes matter can go through.  These are just a couple of quick clips of experiements taking place in the classroom.

In the clip below, we measured the mass of vinegar, baking soda, balloon, and water bottle, separately.  We then mixed them together again (and aside from a little gas leaking out) measured all the matter still in place ... of course in a perfect world it would have been equal.  In actuality - we were off by a couple of grams.

In the clip below students are measuring the mass of pieces of Legos and then creating a figure. They measure the mass of the figure - illustrating that the sum of the parts = the sum of the whole.

As always - to learn more about Science, Math, or Reading skills - sign into http://gcsnc.discoveryeducation.com using your user names and passwords provided. 

Closing In on the END of First Quarter

The Last Few Weeks ...

The last few weeks have been amazingly full with lots of conferences - but also in the classroom.  We finished up our first Science Unit on Weather and have gotten a great start on our second module in Mathematics.

Below are some of the highlights since the last post!

We began our second module in Mathematics by doing a quick word sort - finding words that lead us to believe whether we should multiply, add, subtract, or divide.  This will come in extremely handy as we begin to work on solving multi step problems.

As always...to follow along with what is happening in Math on a daily basis and to help find extra support for your student or to refresh your own Math skills - use the Google Slides that I try to update every couple of days to offer familial support. 

In Science, students reviewed the concept of weather fronts by working in small groups to create their own Paperslide videos.  Below is an example of two of them.

Students also created foldables to explain weather instruments and how they are used to give us data about the weather.

Students also had options of creating 6-word-stories to review severe weather and cloud terms.

Another Big Event...

+Discovery  partnered with the American Heart Association, National Football League, and the Discovery Education Network to launch this years #GetMovingPlay60Challenge.  Students represented their answer to a question by either jumping jacks or running in place.  Much more engaging than raising a left or right hand - don't you think?

Week 5 Kick Starting Like Never Before

#CelebrateMonday #TrendThePositive is an idea that Mondays are a sort of a restart.  It can be this for Teachers and Students! So- starting tomorrow and every Monday we will Tweet out with the hashtags to share something positive about our Mondays! @rakes1998 has done a great job of starting us off with high energy!

On Tuesday 4th and 5th graders will go on a virtual field trip to learn about heart health and about the #getmovingPLAY60 challenge! Tuesday, Sept 26^th from 1-2pm: fourth and fifth grade students will be participating in a live NFL PLAY 60 Challenge Virtual Experience event sponsored by @DiscoveryEducation, NFL PLAY 60 and the American Heart Association. Parents and Guardians are invited to come and support their students at this event! 
This live event, hosted by two Minnesota Vikings football players, is designed to show kids how 60 minutes or more of physical activity will benefit their health. Students will investigate how the circulatory system provides their bodies with oxygen and the nutrients they need. They will enjoy healthy snacks and be entered into drawings for some really cool prizes provided by @DiscoveryEducation! 

As always, have a great week and don't forget to follow, +1, and comment!

Watching Irma as We End Week 2

While this was a short week for us thanks to the Labor Day holiday on Monday - a lot was packed in!

photo credit : stevespangler

In Science we studied the water cycle and created a cloud in a bottle as an example of condensation.

Hurricane Irma provided much discussion as it begins to head toward the continental United States.  While the projected path seems to be steering away from us here in the Triad - we did take the time to discuss hurricane preparedness. Click here for a list of ways to be prepared according to the Red Cross.




Please don't forget to check in on what skills your students are either brushing up on, learning for the first time, or honing to perfection - the presentation found here will have daily updates and resources to help re-mediate or grow beyond grade level expectations!

2017-2018 Has Begun!

The first week of 2017-2018 is in the books... and what a week it has been!  Lots of information trading, schedule learning, and relationship building...and that was in just room 15!


Students and families - I want you to know that I am working to diligently promote #noexcuses when it comes to homework or for understanding the curricular expectations.  Please use this blog as a constant key to what is going on in our class.  Thank you to +Peter Panico for helping to build the idea of a 'daily notes/daily question/daily resource' resource... I think families are going to love it!

You can access our daily notes and curriculum coverage in math by scanning the code below with any QR Code scanner or by clicking here,

First and foremost - please sign up for an account with AppleTree so that we can stay in touch.  ba853dbd is the class code.


Encourage your students to access their accounts from +Discovery Education by signing into http://gcsnc.discoveryeducation.com - their lunch numbers and birthdays are the key to getting in.

We already began researching weather terms and conditions with our first Unit.  In light of the travesty that was Hurricane Harvey - it was definitely something that piqued their interests.

IF you haven't yet had the opportunity to meet our new leader - Principal @rakes1988 (Mrs. Stephanie Rakes) - please take the time to do so.  With the guiding beacon being what is best for children and a core strength of love and passion for children - she's sure to lead us to great places!

#Vandaliastrong

Lastly - Don't forget to register with Guilford County Schools as a Volunteer and help us out!

Visit often ;-) 

30 Families showed up to Open House!!!

Welcome Back to School!  Welcome to an AMAZING 2017-2018 year!

For those of you who were able to make it to open house - THANK YOU! It is so important that you invest in the education of your student(s) and build the relationships with teachers that will fuel your rock star’s success!  For those of you unable to make it - we are available.  Contact us.

Please and most importantly - go to www.goappletree.com and sign up for an account.  Twelve people have already signed up and we are going for 100% participation.  It will be the preferred method of contact this year and how Mrs. Benoy and I will share out pertinent information.  The access code is

ba853dbd.

The next most important thing is the photo consents for the district, National Boards, and Discovery Education.  The absence of a consent will act as a consent but it would be much better for me to have your document on file!

Don’t forget: School starts at 7:25 (when the doors open).  Students will enter, get a breakfast, and then head to the classroom to eat.  At 7:40 each morning we will head to the cafeteria for our energizing morning meetings.  It is important that your student be in attendance, and trust - they won’t want to miss this!

Please visit this classroom blog each week @ rodneycrouse.blogspot.com.

Please follow me on Twitter @Rodney_Crouse

Please email me with any questions at crouser@gcsnc.com

Welcome to the 2017-2018 School Year

A lot of 'new' is coming our way!  It's a new school year, a new math curriculum, I'm going to be teaching Science as well as math and Skylynn is laying her first eggs in the classroom!  Not to mention there are 50 new students about to start their first day in their last year of elementary school.

Open house is Friday, August 25, 2017 at 6:00pm.  I can't wait to meet the parents that I don't already know or to see how much my students that I first had in Kindergarten have grown!  (of course I will still look exactly the same ;-) ) 

This  year's theme is 'Shoot for the Stars and Leave Paw Prints on the Moon' - and that's just exactly what we are going to do and work very diligently to make that happen.  

Please check back here weekly to see our progress as we document the achievements made!