5TH GRADE NEWS

LANGUAGE ARTS AND HISTORY:

Fifth grade has just landed in America as English colonists!  We are imagining ourselves in the shoes of those brave people who founded the first successful English settlement. So far, we “gentlemen” have voyaged from England to the shores of Virginia and met the Powhatan Indians. We wrote day-in-the-life journal entries from the point of view of a Woodland Indian. Now we are wondering whether we can survive without much training in agriculture or experience in manual labor. Will Chief Powhatan and his tribe help us?  

When we are not exploring the New World, we are drafting essays about women’s suffrage for the annual Daughters of the American Revolution essay contest in our Language Arts class. This year’s topic focuses on the 19th Amendment and its impact on America. For some students, like H.W., this is the best part of Language Arts-- imagining that we get to live in 1919! What excitement 5th grade is experiencing as we time travel between 1607, 1919, and 2018!  

MATH AND SCIENCE:

Eureka!

Will it sink or will it float? Why? Fifth grade students investigated the physical property of density in a collaborative research assignment with Grade Six. Topics included mass, volume, density, and concentration, as well as more complex concepts such as ideal gas laws and Archimedes principle.  Students shared their findings with one another and then applied their knowledge and skills in hands-on lab practical. In the laboratory, students calculated the density of air and compared it to a known standard and found the “number density” of Skittles. They formed and tested hypotheses regarding which brand of soap would float, and why. They also formed and tested hypotheses about the densities of various liquids. We had a great time getting our hands wet and the tables sticky!

“My favorite learning experiment was this week was in science. I got to learn about volume and density. I also got to learn about why a certain soap floated and the other two sunk to the bottom.” ~Addison

“I really enjoyed the density lab in science. One of the things I really liked about it was that there was a lot of teamwork involved. Also it was very fun and exciting to be in the lab with my friends having fun.” ~Morgan