Natural Resources

What better way to learn about the natural resources available to certain Native American tribes, than to spend history class surrounded by those resources?!  Stay tuned for part 2 of this lesson...

Computer Science: Game Design

In fifth grade, we learn all about game design!  This year, the girls started with Game Star Mechanic, a web-based platform that teaches the elements of gaming.  Read more about it on Common Sense.  Your daughter has to work her way through a sci-fi world in order to create her very own games.

Becoming Historians

The fifth grade historians have been hard at work; exploring, cultivating new ideas, putting those ideas into action, reflecting on their new knowledge, producing their own original theories, and most importantly having fun in the process! 

Pictured below are the historians in action, researching information about Native American cultural regions. 

The girls will become experts on one region and present their findings to the class via a Google Slides presentation and "Mystery Box" construction.

Fall Spirit Day!

Science: Our Bryn Mawr Ecosystem

As the year began, we went outside to explore the Bryn Mawr ecosystem. We started by observing trees. As scientists, we drew the trees, wrote detailed descriptions of them, and did leaf and bark rubbings. All this information was put into our nature journals.

We learned how to identify trees. Looking at their leaves and how they are arranged on the branch helped us to determine the type of tree.

When trees die, they are turned into soil by decomposers so that their nutrients are then available to nourish other plants. We took apart rotting logs to find the decomposers living in them and eating them.

Trying to identify the decomposers was fun and sometimes challenging.

We had a special opportunity to view nature and learn many new things when we went on a nature walk with Upper School science teacher and naturalist, Dr. McMillan. He pointed out a spice bush to us and told us of its relationship with the spicebush swallowtail butterfly. He showed us how the juice from a walnut can stain things, including his hands. He explained that squirrels are responsible for planting many trees when they bury their nuts for the winter and then forget where they buried them.

We have already discovered many interesting things about Bryn Mawr's ecosystem, and there is still much to learn!

Art_3D Letters & Alliteration

The girls have designed their own font (for the first letter of their first name) that matches their personalities. Then, they have turned them into 3D using poster board and ketchup cups. Now they are wrapping glue tape around them while they are planning their surface design and their alliterative sentence. They are learning how characteristics of their design can express their own character!

   

Founder's Day Fun and Other Fifth Grade Updates

Founder's Day Fun!

Fifth Grade Updates:

• The girls are wrapping up their first novel of the year, Our Only May Amelia!
• In math, the girls are calculating MEAN, MEDIAN, MODE and RANGE 
• History continues to be an exploration of Native American regions and cultures!

French: Le défilé de mode !

Friday was the highly anticipated French fashion show and the fifth grade girls put on an absolutely fantastique show! Each girl walked the cat walk and then read a paragraph in French describing a classmate's outfit. In the weeks leading up to the show, the girls worked very hard writing their paragraphs and then practicing their pronunciation. On Friday, they were poised, fun-loving, and read beautifully. I was so proud of their attitudes and effort! Bravo, les filles!