The Lebanon Lantern The Lebanon Lantern Winter 2019 final | Page 10

colonial times, and what caused the unrest before the Revolutionary War. We will also be talking about traditions.
Students also share their December traditions as they practice their public speaking!
Fifth Grade
Our class has had a wonderful first trimester together! We have completed math units about place value, division,
and decimal addition/subtraction, and next are heading into decimal multiplication and division. In reading, we
have read wonderful stories in multiple genres, including biography, realistic fiction, historical fiction, myths,
and tall tales. We have written opinion and persuasive essays, researched endangered animals and made
presentations about the animals that included student-created Google slides. In science, we have been learning
about the web of life, food chains, and ecosystems. We will next look at why the dinosaurs became extinct.
In Social Studies, we are learning about the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia and their incredible inventions
and innovations. We learned that the Sumerians created the world’s first writing system, Cuneiform, which was
carved into clay tablets. The students even made their own names in clay using cuneiform symbols. In addition
to all these academic achievements, our character education program has included learning about citizenship,
respect, and caring, and we enjoyed school-wide activities related to Red Ribbon Week, Violence Awareness
Week, and Week of Respect. Our classes, our school, and our community are definitely “Better Together” when
we practice our six pillars of good character!
Sixth Grade
In September, the class began a journey that was both a beginning and an end. They began a new school year and
a new grade, but with the knowledge that this is the last year they will spend at Lebanon Borough School.
We began our reading journey with our summer book, “A Wrinkle in Time”. Each 6th grader did a personal
project based on the book, which included sculptures of characters, digital collages, murals, and even a model of
an actual tesseract. From our sci-fi/fantasy story, we made a 180° turn and began the story, “My Side of the
Mountain” by Jean Craighead Moore, which we then compared to an excerpt from Gary Paulsen’s “Hatchet” and
the book “Old Yeller” by Frank Gibson. We have now turned from our realistic/historical fiction theme of
September and October, and jumped into the fantasy genre with C.S. Lewis’ “The Lion, The Witch, and The
Wardrobe”. Our adventures with Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy should take us to the end of December -- the
perfect way to end the calendar year!
In social studies, our journey began in ancient Greece. We studied both the history and the myths surrounding
that beginning. The students capped their studies of Ancient Greece with slide presentations on Greek gods and
goddesses. Each student chose a different god or goddess to research. They created presentations in Google slides,
and then presented them to their classmates. If you are curious, you can view the presentations on the 6th grade
website ( http://Joyce_Petty.MyTeacherSite.org). From Greece we have moved on to the Roman Empire, which
we will study into December and January..
Our science journey this first trimester has been focused on life science by learning about cells, body systems and
sensory receptors. So far our investigations have involved exercising a number of our systems and examining
cells and tissues under the microscope, as well as some hands-on experiments to test our body systems. Along the
way, we have completed cell models, Google Slides presentations and a Performance Expectation Assessment
Task in lieu of a unit test. They will create a model to describe the function of an individual cell and the ways that
the parts of the cell contribute to the function. They must then develop an argument for how the human body is a
system of interacting subsystems, and give a summary of how sensory receptors respond to stimuli. Next month
we will begin talking about reproduction in plants and animals, before moving on to biomes in the New Year.
Finally, we are journeying swiftly through our math book. We have completed four full chapters and are started
on our fifth! Our year has included a review of decimals, fractions, absolute value and integers (positive and
negative numbers). We recently finished ratios and rates and will be moving on to percent in December. We are
getting closer to algebra everyday!
Be sure to follow us on Twitter @LBSWildcats. If you do not have a Twitter account, and do not wish to set
one up, you can see our Twitter Feed on the main page of our district website at www.lebanonschool.org.
The Lebanon Borough School PTA hosted a very successful Basket Auction on Friday,
October 19th. Thank you to the community for your great support!