THE DEANS' DEN 6

3 (5th & 6th Grades)

Social Justice: During the month of February, the 5th grade looked at self-identity through a Social Justice lens. How does who we are impact our views on race, gender, and social interactions? The students also investigated Holocaust Remembrance week and observed Black History month Some of the books we are covering include The Terrible Things by Eve Bunting, and Langston Hughes’ Mother to Son The students were tasked with reading, writing, and in some cases, illustrating their interpretations of the work

5th grade Humanities: In February students continued the reading and study of The Double Life of Pocahontas as we looked into the conflicts between Indigenous people and the new settlers Students learned how to describe the relationship that existed between the colonists and indigenous peoples during the 1600s and 1700s (e.g., in agriculture, the fur trade, military alliances, treaties, cultural interchanges). They examined the conflicts before the Revolutionary War (e.g., the Pequot and King Philip’s Wars in New England, the Powhatan Wars in Virginia, the French and Indian War). Students will start narrative writing and create fictional stories based on our study of the 1700s

6th grade Humanities: After Reading The Gift of the Magi, students created Google slide presentations reflecting literary elements of the story: plot, setting, characterization, theme, and mood, as well as vocabulary from the story Students also self-selected a classic novel of their choice and made a holiday gift for the protagonist of the story based on a list of criteria The gift was accompanied by a letter written to the character with the rationale for the gift they hand-made

Our grammar review came in the form of a restaurant menu! As an identity piece, students opened a restaurant reflecting their culture or winter holiday their family celebrates.

Using Canva, they created a menu of cultural foods, highlighting nouns, collective nouns, adjectives, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, possessives, and plural possessives. In January, we began a deep dive into Greek and Latin roots, and using these roots, prefixes, and suffixes to derive meaning of new vocabulary in context Students also presented the “preposition Song” where they individually sang the list of prepositions

In history, we traveled to Ancient Mesopotamia where we read The Epic of Gilgamesh for Teen Readers, culminating in a five paragraph opinion essay. Students created personal tablets with our names written in cuneiform, conducted research and compiled posters on the various city-states of Mesopotamia with our collaborative groups, and then presented this information to the class. 'Mesopotamian Madness' found us placing the achievements of Mesopotamia in a March Madness bracket, ending with classroom debates to decide the most important achievement!

For Lunar New Year we created mini-posters of influential Asian-Americans, and Black History month found us appreciating the poetry of Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, and Amanda Gorman That month, we also traveled to Ancient Egypt and dove into our latest novel, The Golden Goblet, through Literature Circles Students are also working on 3D maps of the Nile River environments and creating individual canopic jars used in mummification.

In music during our celebration of Black History Month, 5th and 6th grade students watched the documentary “Standing in the Shadows of Motown, ” which celebrates the Motown House Band, the Funk Brothers.