5th Grade: To Boldly Go...

The encounter of civilizations is our driving theme in 5th grade this year. To start generating a list of the attributes of civilizations and also to explore what kinds of consequences arise out of two civilizations encountering each other, we read the book Encounter by Jane Yolen: Next, to extrapolate this concept of an encounter and put our own current civilization into the story, students created comics that imagined the first contact between...

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4th Grade Update: The "Wright" Stuff

Other grade levels are enjoying novels as a supplement to their units this year, but 4th grade is the only group using a novel as the primary launch pad for all their explorations. The novel is The Wright Three by Blue Balliet. Here's a book talk/preview: To set a foundation for reading, we first built up some background knowledge on architecture in general, including some basic concepts and a scavenger hunt of some famous buildings. This included...

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