ALL ABOUT THE 5th GRADE AT T.J.

We have four teachers in fifth grade this year - Mrs. Bratt, Mrs. Fridholm, Mrs. Pendergast, , and Mrs. Steinberger. Our principal, Mrs. Isenberg, won a grant this year from the Hudson Valley Conservancy to help us study black history in New York State . Among other things, we went to Phillipsburg Manor - a historic plantation that is 20-30 minutes away from T.J. We have gone there three times. The first time, we had a tour of the Manor House, a tenant farmer's house, and the gristmill. The second time we went to Phillipsburg, we really focused on slavery. We learned about where the slaves lived and what types of work they did. We also learned that they had songs to pass secret messages about how to escape. The third and final time we went, it was for a slave holiday called Pinkster Day. We saw some dances and heard some songs that slaves used to dance and sing on Pinkster Day. We also saw some of the instruments they would have used.

We decided to make a quilt to show what we had learned about black history in New York State. Every student was responsible for one patch, and then Mrs. Bratt and Mrs. Pendergast quilted them together. We also made an activity book with all this information in it.

We had our D.A.R.E. graduation on May 20, 2004. We had eight weeks of D.A.R.E. that helped us learn about resisting drugs and violence. Angela H. in Mrs. Steinberger's class won a medal for student of the year. Our D.A.R.E. officer, Officer Finn, made the training fun.

In June, we will be taking the traditional fifth grade trip to Mystic Seaport and Provincetown, Massachusetts to go on a whale watching trip. To prepare for this trip, we had meetings every Friday. We had to have good behavior. If we didn't, we wouldn't go on the trip. While there, we will take pictures of the whales that we see, write in our journals about what we learn, talk with a marine biologist, go to an aquarium at Mystic Seaport, go to the beach, and swim in the pool.

In the begining of the year Mrs. Halim (TJ's art teacher) took us to a place called John Jay Homestead. There we made maps leading to different places around the homestead. We all had to draw pictures of the house, the barn, the schoolhouse, and the playhouse. Then we had a tour of the house and the garden. We learned how to do perspective drawings of the buildings and their surroundings.

We also learned about John Jay - a man who was a delegate to the 1st and 2nd Continental Congresses and was president of the Continental Congress from December 1778-September 1779. In 1779 he was sent to be a Minister to Spain from the revolutionary government. In 1783, John Jay negotiated the Treaty of Paris with the United Kingdom. This ended the Revolutionary War. Upon returning to the United States he found he had been asked to be the first Secretary of Foreign Affairs. In 1789 he became our first Chief Justice. While still Chief Justice, Jay went to England and negotiated the Jay Treaty - which improved conditions between the United Kingdom and the United States. Jay became Governor of New York in 1795 and served two terms.

Our whole school is working together now at the end of the year to collect items needed by our American soldiers in Iraq. We are boxing up items such as soap, eye drops, socks, snack food and reading materials to send to them. We are also writing letters with news from home for them to read.

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