March Madness with Inventions!

Paring writing with our social studies, students are looking at the most important inventions since the American Revolutionary war. What was the one invention that has improved our lives and would be unimaginable to live without? This was the question to start our unit on persuasive writing.

Students sifted through a variety of resources to determine what they believed to be the most important invention. After listing their top three choices, students that voted alike were put into a "research group".  We ended up with seven groups. Students worked collaboratively to research their invention.

It has been a joy watching students read information, take notes, develop a claim, and provide support for their claim to persuade others.
Students then used this information to create a one minute video. We voted on our seven videos to identify our top two groups. Morse Code and Refrigeration are going on to the top 10.  Students will then compete with other videos from the other fifth grade classes. The top ten will go to the top five and then to the winner. We are excited to get the voting under way!

 

BreakoutEdu

What a great day today in the Paxton Keeley library! Thanks to our media specialist we got to do our first Breakout!  With a Minecraft theme kids were instantly intrigued.  Working together and working through clues, students were able to break out!

Be sure to ask your child about this fun activity!

Lady Liberty

Students have been studying immigration that occurred between 1880-1920's. We have discovered that many European immigrants passed through Ellis Island. 

As people entered the U.S., they had a six-minute medical exam.  Trachoma was a prevalent eye disease that kept many people from being admitted to the U.S.

Students learned about the stairs of separation. There were three lines of stairs that separated people by admission or denial into the U.S. 

Students learned that there was another place of great immigration, Angel Island in California. Most of the immigrants that entered were Chinese.

First Week Preparing for BizTown

Students have started our lessons on preparing for our BizTown field trip. In April, we will go to BizTown in St. Louis and simulate a modern day economy. Students will prepare over the course of the next few weeks. Here students are making a prototype and learning about the scarcity of supplies.

Turns out, we had a lot of fun doing it too!

 This group made crowns for dogs.

 This group made fruit baskets.

This group made books.