Strawbery Banke Visit

The weather was perfect for our field trip last week to Strawbery Banke in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  Thank you to TESPTO for underwriting the trip.  We spent the day at this living history museum just a few blocks from downtown Portsmouth.  Traveling back and forth in time, we explored the houses, hobbies, and lives of the immigrants that moved to this neighborhood.  The students particularly enjoyed trying on the clothes of colonial children, commenting that there were so many layers to put on.  They also considered what it would be like to come to Strawbery Banke when they assumed the roles of various immigrants to the area, from Irish servant to colonial slave.  I encourage you and your families to take another visit to Strawbery Banke to find out even more about this little local gem.  Check out the website at www.strawberybanke.org

Watching the meals being cooked.  That's a tray of dried pumpkin
which can be reconstituted with water.

The baseball hat is a bit out of time.

Dashing!

This was a favorite coat for the young men.

Smiles!

There was still another layer to put on.

Ahoy, mates.  Outside the woodworking shop.

Cardboard Challenge 2015

Another great year of the Cardboard Challenge!  Inspired by the YouTube video "Caine's Arcade", our 5th grade students, under the direction of Jen Larussa in the CLIC lab, designed, redesigned, and built their own cardboard creations.  Working in teams, they had to agree on a concept and then construct it.  Sounds simple, but it is always fascinating to me to watch how they grapple with the design problems that arise, not to mention how to work as a team.  Bringing their ideas to reality is no easy feat.  Here are just a few excellent examples of that creativity from our classroom:

All in all a really great afternoon of creativity.  Amazing what a little cardboard and duct tape can let loose.

Writing and Reading and Thinking About Einstein

On Friday afternoon, our class had a visit with the author Mark Peter Hughes.  Mr. Hughes is the author of several teen and tween novels, including Lemonade Mouth (which some students recall as a Disney movie) and A Crack in the Sky (of which we received a copy during his visit).  You can find out more about Mark Peter Hughes on his website www.markpeterhughes.com .

We were able to learn many things about writing during our seminar with Mr. Hughes.  As we are just starting our personal narratives, he gave timely advice on how to "show not tell" in our writing.  He told us encouraging stories of how he had to work at his own writing, sharing the first draft of one of his published books and the revised final result.  It was good for students to see that Mr. Hughes completely revamped his approach to the story.  If a professional writer has to revise, so can a 5th grade writer.  We were also able to practice using our five senses to write short passages.  Thank you to TESPTO for bringing Mr. Hughes to Proctor School.

We have also begun the Global Read Aloud for 2015.  This year we are reading Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt.  We've only read a few chapters together, but the students are making connections and beginning to relate to the main character.  What an exciting concept to be reading the same book as the rest of the world!

"Everybody is a genius.  But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." -- Albert Einstein