Making Fifth Grade More Fun & Interesting

I recently left a Lakeshore catalog on my desk, and when I came in the next day it was all dogged-eared and covered in post-its. It wasn't until I announced to my class that our last proposal was funded, that I found out that my students were the culprits. When I come up with a proposal, I look for something that fulfills a classroom need. This time my students took the initiative. Knowing that it is the end of the year, and that we might not get funded before they, as fifth-graders, leave the school, they still came up with a wish list of items that they think would make fifth grade more fun and interesting. Their interests fell into five categories… For math, they selected a giant decimal practice board with coordinating student boards, a set of student place value boards (since we already have the giant version in our class), a set of place value books, and an extremely helpful geometry demonstration tool kit. Science was all about "hands-on." Diagram It! magnetic boards, demonstrating things like plant and animal cells, a compare and contrast chart to show comparisons between scientific concepts, a "Track the Weather" chart, so they can act like student meteorologists, a rock, fossil and mineral collection – a must have for any science classroom, and finally a fun, "read and classify" activity kit. Art choices centered on crafts and include; hand punch shapes, numbers and letters, a paper storage center to neatly store our construction paper, and finally a "Super-Safe Craft Tape Center" with refill tapes in bright colors and pastels. Their language arts choices will undoubtedly make a difference in their reading and writing. They include a "Flip-To-Learn" revising and editing guide for each student, a "responding to literature" activity center, and finally, a learning literary elements activity program. Finally, some of their choices are just to make the classroom run more smoothly, such as personal privacy partitions for testing, a "Turn-In-Your-Work" organizer to keep the desk uncluttered, binder storage centers for their writing binders and magnetic display clips to firmly hold their work onto any metallic surface. These kids come from low-income families, but this is the first time they have asked for anything. Truthfully, we could get by without any of these things, but if you have the generosity to fund this proposal, you will be showing my students that well thought-out and selfless decisions are respected and honored. These kids didn't ask for X-boxes. They asked for things that they know may pretty well go to others, and they are fine with that. I am very proud of them.