We had an absolutely FABULOUS day at track and field this last Friday! Not only was the weather beautiful, but our sportsmanship, as a school, was something worth being very proud of! The kids encouraged and cheered everyone and this obviously paid off! Hoppin fifth graders ended up taking 4 awards home! SO, so proud of these kiddos! *** We must apologize for the recent limited postings. Mrs. B (well, more accurately, MR. B) broke her phone which has been the prominent source of photos for the blog. Quite a few were lost when the phone broke :( Unfortunately, the following photos will not be of very high quality... one never appreciates camera quality until one goes back to a phone version from 4 years ago! ANYWAYS! We have been traveling through time as we discovered all about what life was like during the Early American Colonies.... In groups, we traveled to the New World in a very crowded ship, created our own colony, set up rules, established a good place to build our settlement, and created a colonial flag. We researched how clothing, houses, lifestyles, etc. changed from the 1600-1700s. We obviously, had to dress up, and we wrote compare and contrast articles on the clothing that different classes wore during Colonial America. We "Ran" the colonies in the afternoons after M-Step to help us get some energy out while still learning content. One lap around the blacktop equaled "1 mile". Once we had arrived at our new destination (Massachusetts to North Carolina) we stopped and took notes on how the colony was founded. In writing, we have been learning how to write strong opinion essays. Out latest debated which colonial region would have been the best to live in. We identified the main idea, found evidence to support our reasons for the text, and made resource maps about the cultures and economies of each region. **Essays are done - and beautiful! Pictures will come soon! In math, we have been learning about volume, area, and perimeter. One of our culminating projects was to create a colonial village using our knowledge of these standards. Students learned all about colonial bartering and trading during our classroom "marketplace" simulation!
All in all, we learned a TON and had a great deal of fun while doing it :) With the weather getting warmer, we are back outside enjoying the Walking Classroom! This last week we traveled down to Statue Park and enjoyed some brisk, but VERY fresh air while learning about our nation's first president - George Washington. We learned that Washington had lots of important decisions to make not only as the first president, but also in his personal life, as a general for the French and Indian War as well as the for the Revolution, and in creating our very new nation.
To being our unit on the Three Worlds (Africa, Americas, and Europe) meeting, we do a simulation: I put the kiddos into three groups = Europe, The Americas both North and South, and Africa. I give each group a map of their continent and an envelop filled with natural resources as well as man made items from their continent and culture. I then have them categorize these items in any way they want. Next, I explain that these items both manufactured and natural resources are what they had to trade with other countries and have them sort them in order of trade value. Then, the groups walk around the other tables and talked about what they would want from the other continent's list of items. It was fun to listen to their conversations of what they thought they could trade the other continent for! "We could give them 2 horses for maybe 2 carts of pineapples, but they would have to give us the carts to make it fair" Then, we start the Simulation: I explain that many of the items they have traveled "accidently" between the continents and required no trading at all. These items included many livestock that the Europeans brought over Coronado brought over pigs and they multiplied in the wild exponentially!, plants, and diseases - most notably Small Pox. For a visual, we connect the "continents" with red string when items were traded. To demonstrate the severity of disease upon the native population I have a "European Explorer" from the Europe table trade a picture of copper pots with a native chief for a few natural items. As the cards are passed I explain that the European had small pox and that three of the "natives" died of it They have to go sit at the "Table of Death". Next, the Europeans discovered how well tobacco, cotton, sugar cane, and coffee grew in the New World and sent men to farm it more students head from the Europe table to the Americas table. They "hire" and enslave Native Americans, but every time they "shake hands" the "Natives" die from disease or run away to other tribes now there are 5 kids lying on the carpet. The Europeans now don't have anyone to help them in their fields ... so they send a trader to Africa ... who it must be noted, already have slavery occurring on their continent. I have the African "king" send some people to a remote "village" and gather slaves for the Europeans and sent them to the "New World" table.
Later, when we go to fill in our graphic organizer, the kids can articulate exactly what was happening to the cultures in the different continents after this activity.
|
HOPPIN's FABULOUS FIFTH GRADE CLASS!
Welcome to our fifth grade classroom blog! Here we share what we discover, learn, ask, and explore about the world around us! Categories
All
|