5TH GRADE NEWS

LANGUAGE ARTS AND HISTORY:

What a delightful year with eight bright, funny, inquisitive minds! Never shy of speaking, these 5th graders have peppered me all year long with insightful comments and thoughtful questions about our lessons, books, and everyday life, from puns to rock bands. They are truly a remarkable group of students, and I am thrilled to teach them History and Latin again next year. What better way to end our year than hold our annual 5th grade Progressive Dinner and the Roman Feast & Carnival in the same week! Students had to dress up in their Sunday and best display their best manners on Tuesday, only to dress up as Roman deities and entertain the younger students on Friday. Of course, the students had to prepare for both, with a dining etiquette lesson for the Progressive Dinner and a deity research project for the Roman Carnival. Table manners, courtesy, analysis, writing, public speaking--we are always learning and applying multiple life skills at St. James!

MATH AND SCIENCE:

Unsinkable

The fifth grade students have been studying the Titanic in Language Arts, and we extended the investigations into our Science class with some fun learning activities. Students calculated the amount of salt needed to simulate ocean water to observe rust formation in fresh water and salt water conditions. They also made icebergs to better understand how ⅞ of the Titanic iceberg was hidden underwater. Of course we had to build our own boats out of foil to see who could hold the most marble “passengers” in an engineering design challenge. For our final week of investigations, we watched the film Night of the Titanic in our student-made planetarium and then ended the week with a Titanic escape challenge. Through teamwork and curiosity, we learned what it takes to become unsinkable!