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Beth Truesdale
truesdaleb@iwacc.org

Fifth Grade Teacher

Students in 5th grade are taking on leadership roles for the elementary, mastering the skills that they have been developing in their upper elementary years, and preparing for the transition to middle school. We share novels, research, create digital presentations, and take on longer/more complex pieces of writing. We practice mastery with elementary math skills and explore connections between different topics in math and the world around us. We work on art, science, data, and engineering projects in multiple media.

5th Graders create a living history project every May. Students choose a person from American history. They become a figure in our "Wax Museum" to share what they've learned in their research and how they have been inspired with the school community.

We research National Parks in Social Studies. Students create digital post cards from each park, created a slide presentation describing their parks, and then design a model of their park's ecosystem (with abiotic and biotic features) in TinkerCAD.

When learning about the Gospel Value of Creativity, every student reads a short book about an artist or engineer. They share the books with their families during Catholic Schools Week and create a poster describing the artist and how they used their gifts/inspired others.

Every year, students decorate a Christmas tree. For example, 5th graders wanted to decorate the tree with two units we were studying at the time. One side was decorated with ornaments connected to colonial America, with the other connected to the novel "Island of the Blue Dolphins."

We also design Christmas Factor Trees every year in 4th and 5th grade. We create lots of art with numbers throughout the year.