5th Grade: Interactive Inklewriter Story Links!

Fifth graders spent all year building up an imaginary civilization attribute by attribute, from geography to mythology, from basic crops to language and number systems. There were thousands of possible ways to wrap up their study, but we went with a free online program called Inklewriter that allows students to create interactive, reader-driven stories. Their task was to create an interactive story full of reader options that told the story and details of their civilization indirectly along the way. I think you'll enjoy!

NOTE: Although I guided and consulted students as much as possible, they were responsible for their own editing, grammar-checking and link-testing. With our limited time each week, I chose to focus on the development of their ideas as opposed to the meticulousness of their writing.

Now have fun!

Ben W: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/g69x

Alex Z: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/nh3q

Annie T: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/jh3q

Jai G.     http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/dm3q

RYAN Y. http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/4dfz

Tom P: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/48wb

Chihchia Y. http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/xwn6

Kristen. http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/cb64

Jeffrey W. http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/3z82

Ava J.: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/zh3d

Anica: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/fghp

Emma R: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/qzd9

Siddhartha: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/q69x

Prisha: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/g8wb

Katherine: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/8pqf

Riya: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/f4xc

Elaine: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/5nd9

Adit: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/44xc

Santosh: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/wwn6

 Amelie: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/gghp

Neha: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/zmpd

Navya: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/cz82

 Kylie: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/bzgm

Ritvik: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/59j8

Marjan: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/9jgm

Tommy C.: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/mmpd

Divya: http://writer.inklestudios.com/stories/2nqf

If your child's story does not appear here, then they did not finish in class and were asked to finish as homework and send me the link. It's not too late!

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3rd Grade Update: Hot Off the Presses!

Though it took some patience and some skilled hands, everyone has finished their kites! The back of each kite includes an executive summary of the famous event, including the WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY and HOW of it all. Many have keys attached, and one student even brought in a mock Leyden jar just like the one Ben used to "trap" his electricity.

After the "enlightening" experience of the kite projects, we did go back into Ben's childhood and do a more traditional biography study.

We've studied his life so far right up to about his 40s, when he really made his mark as a printer of two major publications: 1) The Philadelphia Gazette newspaper and 2) Poor Richard's Almanac. Both had a major impact on the thinking and development of society in Ben's times and the sayings and wisdom of "Poor Richard" are still well-known today. We spent some time unpacking and decoding several of Poor Richard's gems, such as:

• Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise.
• He that can have Patience, can have what he will.
• Diligence is the Mother of Good-Luck.
• Hear no ill of a Friend, nor speak any of an Enemy.
• A true Friend is the best Possession.

For the last few weeks we've been trying our own hand at publishing, working on a newspaper project in the computer lab. Each student is putting together a newspaper edition inspired by Ben Franklin with the following requirements:

• One funny article about life at your school written with a pseudonym (Like Silence Dogood!)
• One article with advice for other students
• A newspaper cartoon (you can copy from the internet but make sure you say where you got it)
• Three jokes and/or riddles throughout the paper
• An Almanac Page with:

1. Weather predictions
2. Wise sayings

We've also taken some time the last couple weeks to introduce/review some specialized deductive reasoning skills with logic grids. Some kids love them, some kids dread them. Either way, logical reasoning is an important piece of their thinking tool kit!

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