Grade Five Alive!

On January 20, 2009 president elect Barack Obama was sworn into office.  Our entire school was allowed to watch the historical event.  

In Washington D.C millions of people gathered together to see the first ever African-American president.  The group of  people included former presedent George W. Bush, his competition Senator McCain and his family. Ms. M says, “Aretha Franklin was on hand to belt out My Country Tis of Thee and sporting a fabulous hat!  I wish I had one!”  Obama promises to fix as many conflicts as possible and make things better for the country. 

The bulletin board above shows some of the important issues we talked about that the new president will have to deal with. They are the economy, education, war, the environment, and health care.

 ~Mike

Here is a link to Education World’s Inaugurals of Presidents of the United States: Some Precedents and Notable Event. Here is the link to the Inauguration Trivia Hunt.

This exhilarating tale is a true story about one little girl in the 1960s whose strength helps her change history.  Six-year-old Ruby Bridges is chosen to be the first African-American to integrate her local New Orleans elementary school.  And along the way people threaten to kill her, but this doesn`t stop Ruby from going to school. Her teacher helps her to change history, and same with her mother and father. In the end Ruby proves that integrating schools is not a bad thing.   

~ Jackie

Would you like to go to school in the Colonial Times?

I wouldn’t. Let me tell you why. The first reason is because if you didn’t behave in school the teacher would pull out the birch stick and hit you with it. If you would bite your fingernails, you would have to wear a nametag that said “bitefinger baby.” If you didn’t know your lessons you were called a dunce. You had to sit on a stool wearing a dunce hat. The worst part was if you were caught whispering you had to put wooden sticks in your mouth which were called whispering sticks.

Schools didn’t have to be comfortable and most of them were not. The one room was always freezing cold in the winter. All students had to bring in wood or else they would have to sit far away from the fireplace. There was no paper so students wrote on a paddle-shaped piece of wood covered with  a thin layer of clear animal horn called a hornbook. No blackboards, computers, maps, or even desks The students all sat on hard wooden benches.

So think about that again. Would you like to live in the colonial times?

~Diazsha

Illustration from If You Lived in Colonial Times by Ann McGovern, illustrated by June Otani.

TRADE ACROSS TIME AND CULTURES by Susan Marlow

“I always wanted to trade fur but… there is no need to because you can just buy some at the store.”

But in 1500 to 1800 people had to hunt for fur. When people did not have enough fur in Europe, they started to explore North America.

There were two routes to the New World, one from France and one from England. Europeans could not hunt as well as the natives so they would trade tools and beads for fur. Natives would come with piles of fur. Eventually Native Americans had wars over hunting grounds and killed each other off. Later when fur-bearing animals became scarce, many tribes died of starvation. With a huge debt to Europe, other tribes lost their land.

The end of the fur trade was when the Europeans cleared more land and fur-bearing animals became even scarcer. Soon Europeans lost the taste for fur and silk became the trend.

~Elias

The results are in for our school’s 2008 presidential election! Of course, I won’t be able to vote for real until the year 2016, but today we held a mock election at school. As you know, Election Day is tomorrow, November 4. The two major candidates are Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain. Other less well-known candidates include Independent Ralph Nader, Libertarian Bob Barr, Green Party Cynthia McKinney, and Constitution Party Chuck Baldwin.

Election Day to me is helping America decide who will lead our country. Every vote counts because each vote goes to your state, and each state is won over by a certain candidate. Then the candidate with the most states, wins the election. It’s important to vote because how we feel about the isues in our country determines how our government will work.

Barack Obama won with 496 votes or 66% to John McCain’s 255 votes or 33%. The others only received 11 votes or 1%. That’s what the students at our school want.

How about you?

~Daniel

Hello. Let me introduce myself—I’m Mrs. S, and I am a teacher assistant in Rooms 246 and 249. I had some free time this fine, long Columbus Day weekend and wanted to get our classroom blog rolling by modeling a couple of posts for our students.

Don’t get me started on revisionist history, but I must admit that having been back at school since the last week in August, we are all most deserving of this Monday holiday commemorating the voyage of Columbus. In social studies, we are currently studying the early exploration of the New World so I think it’s relevant to include this quote from our Harcourt Brace history text:

“Christopher Columbus never knew that he had not reached Asia. Believing he had reached the Indies, he called the people he met Indians. Until his death in 1506, Columbus kept saying that he had found a new water route to Asia. Other explorers, however, proved him wrong.”

So, did Columbus “discover” America? He couldn’t have, since the native Americans were already here!

Photo Courtesy of NASA.