Honeybees - Fifth Grade Core - Sue Pindell
Our umbrella topic for the whole year is: What is a system?  What happens when a system does not function properly?  With this “big idea” in mind, our fall semester will tackle important mal-functions in our US social/historical system: what brings about conflict, focusing on the Revolutionary and Civil Wars?  Once we look into the historical origins, we will begin to learn about, evaluate, compare and empathize with multiple perspectives of people involved in these crucial times in history.  We will do classroom simulations called, “Independence” and “Civil War Stories”.  Reading will be integrated based on the REACH curriculum and other novels.  Content based non-fiction reading and reading strategies will be taught as well as a variety of related topics.  Content writing will be woven in, although writing itself will be a separate class.  We will be working on organizational skills and strategies, conducting class meetings and supporting each other as a community. Spring topics will be science systems.