This has been an active time in 5th grade!

The students did a play about the Trojan Horse at our Grandparents Day celebration. The whole class participated in making a four pot planter for the Grandparents day auction.

On February 27th two of our students, Abigail and Will, participated in a tennis tournament along with the rest of our middle school tennis team. The team performed very well, Abigail won 1st place in singles!

We had six 5th graders who participated in the regional Science Olympiad competition in Fort Worth on February 29th. We had a field trip to the Science and History Museum on the Friday before the competition. The kids had a blast doing hands-on activities including sitting on a bed of nails! On Saturday, all the students did well and we had some medal winners from our class. Daniel and Cooper received 2nd place medals for the Reach for the Stars competition, and Olivia and her partner Katherine received a 3rd place medal for Ornithology.

In music, the kids are in the last stages of preparation for the spring play. This year’s production is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The play will be presented at the Sullivan Center on Texarkana High School’s campus.

We are excited about this week’s Engineering and Science Festival. Our 5th-8th graders are doing different booths to demonstrate science and engineering to the rest of our school. Our class is doing a variety of activities including Herpetology, Ornithology, roller coaster design, and germ detection/ prevention. Our students have worked hard to find engaging ways to show science to younger students.

Spring break is next week, and we are looking forward to the break as well as all of the upcoming spring events.

by Jennifer Jordan

For the last 8 weeks, fifth graders have embodied the roles of colonists in 17th and 18th century America. Each student studied a colonial region and with our design chief, Ms. Denise, built a room to showcase his or her daily life. All of this work culminated in our Colonial Living History Project.  

Although our project is officially completed, fifth graders have not abandoned their roles. Our blacksmiths and farmers, our shop owners and wives are now fully immersed, for as colonial America has grown, so too have they. Each student has continued to live alongside the development of the colonies through the French and Indian War, and the debts its mother country, Britain, has to pay. Whether a student lives in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, or Georgia, he or she has felt the effects of the Stamp Act. In fact, through our taxation game, our colonists learned how it felt to have to pay arbitrary taxes upon which they did not vote. Their candy was taxed and given to the King and Parliament just because they happened to wear a blue shirt, or…pants! A massacre occurred in Boston, and our colonists expressed their opinion of this event in a news article. Word now is that the Sons of Liberty are gathering to host a little tea party in Boston. A revolution is on the horizon. Our colonists will likely want to participate and declare themselves as Patriots of America. However, some may still be loyal to Britain. They will have to make a choice. Whatever they may decide, our fifth grade colonists are truly understanding the path to American independence by actively engaging in experiential learning. 

by Nicole Ayers and Marie Goodwin

“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.“ ~Clay P. Bedford

How do you create a curiosity that will kindle a lifelong love of learning? One method we have found to be highly effective in cultivating this sense of wonder is through a program called Science Olympiad. According to the Science Olympiad website, “Science Olympiad is one of the premier science competitions in the nation, providing rigorous, standards-based challenges to nearly 8,000 teams in all 50 states.”

Our students are deeply engaged in a collection of 23 events that span all branches of science and technology. There are build events that challenge the students’ engineering and design skills; there are lab events that require an onsite performance of science mastery, and there are study events that will often test middle school students at a high school or even college level. Grades 5 through 8 have opportunities to collaborate on these events, and they willingly spend several hours together after school each week preparing for competition. The kids often request to meet over holiday breaks to go deeper in their studies and enjoy fellowship together. We love watching our students find their passions for science and pursue their interests with great fervor.

“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.“ ~Clay P. Bedford

By: Marie Goodwin 5tth-6th Grade Math and Science Teacher

Merry Christmas!

Mrs. Goodwin’s homeroom has been busy, busy, busy!

We hit the ground running after Thanksgiving break. The students are learning about energy, force, and motion in science class. They used their understanding of potential and kinetic energy to build a simple roller coaster. The students acted as engineers by planning, testing, and improving their designs as a team. They got very creative and had some fun while learning.

Recently, we had two students participate in a tennis tournament with Pleasant Grove. Go Spartans!

Students from our class were also in The Christmas Story play, which was presented at The Silver Moon Theatre. This weekend, one of our students is participating in the Nutcracker at the Perot Theatre.

We are so proud that our students are active in the community.

We are currently participating along with the rest of the middle school to sponsor a family for Christmas. The kids are also practicing their music for the candlelight service, while working to master the addition, subtraction, and multiplication of fractions.

It’s a great time to be a Spartan!

by Jennifer Jordan, History and Latin Teacher

This school year, middle school students have the opportunity once a week to supplement in-school the after school activities of Quiz Bowl and Science Olympiad. The fall term focuses on Quiz Bowl, as we have more fall competitions, with Science Olympiad taking the reins in the spring. Since school began, the fifth grade class has been spending 45 minutes each Monday afternoon challenging itself to a variety of academia trivia questions. Not every student participates in the after-school programs, and this short period gives everyone a taste of the activities. The tools vary— one week, we may play a whole-class Quizlet; another week, we may try the “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader” board game. Sometimes, the class reinforces a concept they are learning in science or math. Either way, students are gaining knowledge of common trivia while also practicing the skill of thinking quickly on their feet. It’s a win-win!