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What We Are Learning in Grades 4 and 5!

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Grade 4 with Ms. Bentioulis

The future scientists of our world are keenly situated in Pinewood’s Grade 4 classroom this year. Our students, who are studying chemistry, are learning about the difference between physical and chemical changes this month. Their classroom, which is a veritable science laboratory, is filled with experiments – in progress or completed – that test the students’ knowledge of changes in matter. Along with their introduction to the Periodic Table of Elements and important words such as solute & solvent, density & mass, students are dissolving different powders, mixing vinegar with baking soda, placing bleach on fabric, heating sugar, observing popcorn kernels on a hot surface, and my personal favorite…growing mold on jello! All this in the name of science!

Grade 5 with Mrs. Varsakopoulos

Since 12/12/12 at 12:12:12, (a once in a lifetime moment) Mrs. Varsakopoulos’s 5th graders have been spending school time in some adventurous ways.  From early Mesopotamia,  to an imaginary trip up the Nile in ancient Egypt,  these students have been studying about pyramids, pharaohs, and early Egyptian society. They have made recycled paper, written spelling words in hieroglyphs,  watched documentaries, read plays, and made amulets.  Several students are spellbound by the unbelievable tale of good versus evil in the book, The Red Pyramid, which is part of the Kane Chronicles. Of course a study about Egypt wouldn’t be complete without knowledge of the human body, so in science they have been learning about cells and  tissues.  As a part of this unit, the students have learned how to prepare and examine slides under a microscope.  They even  watched yeast cells multiply in the preparation of making their own bread.  Having just learned the names of the major bones of the body, they will now prepare individual projects about organs and different body systems.  In mathematics, they carried out a survey with a variety of questions including- what is a nucleus.  Their findings have been amazing.  Time is fleeting, for sure.