Mrs. Ulmer's Class

The fifth graders are thrilled to be presenting Where the Wild Things Are as their one act play this year. Eighth graders Teddy, Zach, and Alison are leading them on this adventure as they rehearse their lines, work on improvisation, and design the set and costumes.   The sixth graders have been practicing close reading as they make their way through The Lightning Thief.  Each time they read, they annotate the text, and they are developing deeper thinking by making predictions, asking questions, making connections, and noticing the author's craft.  Here, students choose one of their notes to think  about   more deeply through writing.   In religion class, the fifth grade students are learning about the Sacraments of Initiation, beginning with Baptism.  Here, Andrew sequences the rite of Baptism. In grade 5, students read "Can't You Make Them Behave, King George?" by Jean Fritz.   They made claims about the author's tone and found

Did you know that seven new saints were canonized this past weekend?  One of those seven was Oscar Romero.  Since the fifth grade will be studying Latin America later in the year, we took a closer look at this inspiring El Salvadoran saint who gave up his life in order to speak for the disenfranchised. First, students watched the video below: The students then created props and rehearsed a short play to celebrate the brave martyrdom of Oscar Romero.  As Zayda said so well, "He was not afraid to speak the Word of God even though he knew he might be killed."  Take a look at their performance: May his story remind each of us to be "microphones of God." Pray for us, Saint Oscar Romero. The fifth-graders open some mail from Texas.  Thank you, many senders of postcards! Google Docs is a great tool for revision. Here, students provide feedback on their classmates' writing using the Comment feature.  The fifth-graders sequence so

In religion class, the fifth-grade students have been reflecting on how we can model Jesus in prayer and loving service. To find out, students have been reading excerpts of the four Gospels, and they are now adept at using a Scripture reference to locate a specific passage in the Bible.   Wow! It really is Good News! At recess recently, the middle-school students have discovered some of the critters that have made HCA their home.   Just in time for Halloween!                          These sixth-grade writers are establishing criteria for evaluating one another's personal narratives.  Stay tuned for some excerpts!

The fifth grade has asked family and friends to send postcards to help us in our study of the United States and Canada. So far, we have received postcards from Wisconsin, Colorado, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and Florida. Thank you to all those who have participated!  If you or someone you know would like to join in, see the note we sent below.  〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓 Dear Family and Friends,            We are writing to you from our classroom at Holy Child Academy in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania. We will begin the fifth-grade year studying the United States and Canada in social studies, so we are inviting you to help us make connections about this region with a postcard project.  Please send us a picture postcard (or send us a picture with a letter) telling us about the state or province where you live. Do you live in an urban or rural area? What are the land and climate like? What do you do for fun?  Please send your card to the fol