5th Grade Traditions

November

• Biography Puppet - Students read a biography, give an oral report and present a homemade puppet in the person's likeness.
• Colonial Commercials - Teams work together to create a commercial to "sell" the idea of coming to a specific colony. Each team creates its own script, props/background and even a clever jingle to persuade newcomers to move to their colony.

January

• Museum of Fine Arts - Fifth grade classes experience the Museum of Fine Arts and the Glassell School of Art through the Discovery Through Art program on three consecutive Tuesdays in January. The museum is a reqarding educational experience, and the hands-on Glassell School of Art is a remarkable time for each child to learn a skill seen in the gallery from a professional artist. Each Tuesday, small groups are toured through a specific section of the museum and then taken to the Glassell School for an art lesson that relates to the tour. We have worked with clay after viewing ancient artifacts and we've painted after viewing famous paintings by Van Gogh or Monet.

March

• State Research Paper and Project - Students build on their fourth grade introduction to researching. They learn to use primary sources, thesis statements, follow an outline, write bibliography cards and note cards, use parenthetical notation to cite their sources, and develop paragraphs into a formal research paper. Students also use their computer lab time to research. For a Social studies project, students may choose to make a collage, salt dough map, poster, etc. about the state they've researched.

May

• Technology - Students conduct research on the Internet, create a Microsoft Power Point multimedia presentation and present it orally to their computer class about a state in our U.S.
• Graduation Week - To celebrate the completion of Lower School, students enjoy three days of dressing up: Hawaiian Day, Career Day, and Favorite Decade Day. Students have a scavenger hunt, movie and the entire CLC (spell out) for two hours : basketball, bowling, ping pong and foosball.
• Fifth Grade Graduation - All students that meet the requirements for the completion of 5th grade and the lower school will be recognized at the 5th grade graduation. This is a time of celebration as the graduates are honored with a ceremony, reception and luncheon. The last "hooplah" for fifth grade includes a tour of the Aquarium hands-on Stingray exhibit, riding a speed boat, "The Beast" and amusement park rides, and lunch at one of the many restaurants on the boardwalk with parents and friends .

Electives

Each fifth grader experiences music, art and Spanish for a nine week period. This in depth, daily instruction allows the student the opportunity to make an informed elective choice for middle school, where they will choose an elective for a year. Each elective exposes the child to the particular discipline, while relying on the season for theme as well. Some examples:

• Art - During Rodeo in Houston, the students participate in the Rodeo Art Contest.
  • Discovery through Art - Students will attend this class which is offered at the Glassell School of Art on Tuesdays in January for hands on art classes and a tour with a docent of The Museum of Fine Arts.
  • Mosaics - Students have a series on mosaics using colored tiles to make a design on a terracotta platter.
• Choir -
  • Students make original puppet plays for kindergarteners, and plan and present them at Lower School Chapel.
  • During Christmas season, students will sing Christmas carols.
• Spanish - Students learn reading, writing, and conversational Spanish; students are also exposed to cultural aspects of Spanish countries.
• Band - Each fifth grade student is introduced to all band instruments to prepare for sixth grade beginning Band and taught to read basic music notes.