Fifth Grade

Welcome to FIFTH GRADE at Mazapan School in beautiful La Ceiba, Honduras! As you are reading this the fifth graders are probably busy with their science fair experiments that they have chosen to do about plants. They are finding out about geotropism, hydrotropism, photosynthesis, life processes and many other things! One group is investigating what happens when you give plants liquids other than water. Did you know that plants like Gatorade???? Honduras is a great place to study science. We have the ocean, the jungle, farmlands, wetlands, etc. We also are associated with Dole Standard Fruit Company which investigates and carries out the best ways to grow and produce fruit! They grow the best pineapple! Towards the end of the year while the kids are studying ecosystems we hope to take a field trip to a place called Cuero y Salado. Here the kids will be able to see a watery ecosystem. We will see manatees and monkeys if we get there early enough!

We are also excited about math! What a challenge! The fifth graders start with a review of addition and subtraction and then move onto decimals and whole numbers. Around September we are beginning Algebra! Boy do they think they are smart when they can tell people that they are studying Algebra. Equations, expressions, variables……they’ve got it all! Next we will be studying multiplication and division. Later on in the year we will get into fractions and even geometry.

Reading and writing go hand in hand. The more fluent you become in your reading, the better you become at writing. Right now we are focusing a lot on reading comprehension and learning all of those wonderful grammar rules. Pretty soon we will be writing like mad men! Well maybe not soon….but by March those pencils should be creating smoke as they fly across paper creating stories or laying out information or even writing poetry. By December the kids will create their own Imagination Station. This is a special area of our room set aside for reading and writing. We have over one hundred books in our library and we have two tables which will have materials such as paper, pencils, pens, envelopes, reference materials, etc. in order to make the students feel more motivated to write!

In the area of social studies we are learning about how America began. If you ask the students what is one reason that people crossed over the Bering Strait into North America, they will tell you that it was because they were following the food!!!! The students will study about the Native