Unveiling the World of Forces: 5th Graders’ Engaging Discussions

The 5th Graders have been very busy in the classroom with our new Transdisciplinary Theme of How the World Works and our focus on the Central Idea revolving around Forces.  Our read-aloud about Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot and currently, Galileo’s Leaning Tower Experiment have kept the students engaged in discussions with their varied hypotheses on how different types of forces work. The students are also very excited about testing their hypotheses with the different activities and experiments that we will have in class in the coming weeks. 

One of the things that we are also looking forward to is setting up our classroom for our forces stations for the Festival of Steam (FOS). As a class, we will be setting up our space to challenge the school community to create different kinds of Rube Goldberg Machines. The students have started learning about this machine, the man behind the name, figuring out which materials to use and bring from home, and different kinds of levels for the stations. 

In Language Arts, we started with Integrated Literacy Centers this semester. The students rotate in different stations such as Guided Reading, Grammar, Independent Reading, Independent Writing, and Spelling Practice with Words their Way. The students have mini lessons with the teachers, are immediately able to practice and apply what they learned, and do independent reading and writing. 

Our current unit in Math focuses on Using Data. We have been measuring, identifying data in landmarks, and organizing our data. The rest of this unit will go into review of fractions, charts and percents.

Exhibition Journey Begins: Passion, Global Issues, and Exploration

Finally, our 5th Graders have started their Exhibition Journey. With the help of one of our Upper Elementary mentor teachers, Ms. Rajani, we have identified our passions and global issues, considered the global significance, and have started work on our central idea for the exhibition. The next two weeks will find us visiting two schools, Cikal School and Sekolah Ciputra, to see their students’ exhibition presentation, and to hopefully get our own ideas of how to stage our own exhibition. 

We have very busy weeks and months ahead, but with the spirit and enthusiasm for learning that our 5th Graders show, I am certain that we will have fun times of learning ahead!