2018 Gazette issue 1

7 Our fifth graders are working hard this first quarter. In Language Arts, they completed a unit on The Sentence and are currently writing a five- paragraph descriptive essay. Our class literature book is The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare. As a culminating project to the book, students will make a detailed plan of how they intend to survive in the wilderness for one month. They will also plan what they’d pack in their backpack, how they would design a cabin to live in for that month, and then they will write a diary entry for five of those days. Earlier this quarter, they tried some Johnnycake, a type of corn cake made in New England. (I don’t think they liked it very much!) In math, fifth graders are now doing the Big Ideas curriculum along with supplemental skill work. This is a brand-new curriculum for our grade level that introduces real-world mathematical problems in a fresh and fun way. In Social Studies, North American geography and early American Indian cultures have been studied. In Science, they have been learning about land and water ecosystems, food webs, and cycles in the ecosystem. Students also worked hard and made their own google slides biome project. Fifth graders are working towards the Science Fair in November. Research Plans have already been devel- oped! Our class will be taking our first field trip in a couple of weeks to IMAG History and Science Museum. Keep up the good work, fifth grade!