Ms. Elson loves nature and science. She has a real passion for the environment. She leads the class in recycling and composting for the whole school She helps to plant and harvest the garden. She is good teacher who knows how to have fun.
    Our class is made up of 18 fifth graders! Our classroom has a lot of microscopes in it. There are enough microscopes that everyone could use one. We also have Writers in our classroom. A Writer is a portable machine that will allow typing practice and writing stories.

    Our class is the head of recycling in our school. Each week, we collect all the recyclables in the school. We are weighing the recycling and putting the information on a chart. We are going to make a graph to show how much we have recycled.  
     Each day we compost at lunch. There is a day by day list of who composts. We do not have to work at the composting, it is a choice. We are also charting and graphing how much we are able to keep out of the garbage.
    We have a rowing machine in our classroom. We are trying to row enough miles that it would be the same as rowing to Rye, New Hampshire. We are going to map the distance that we have virtually rowed.
    We have social studies with Ms. Douglas. We are working with the Rokeby Museum. They have brought in artifacts for us to try and figure out how they were used and who might have owned them. We are studying our ancestors.
    We have four computers in our room. We use them for typing stories. At inside recess, we also get to play games on them.
    We went on a lot of field trips at the beginning of the school year. We went paddling on Otter Creek and Dead Creek with the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum. We stopped and looked for macroinverterbrates. We used a strainer to find them. They are small, but you can see them without a microscope. We went on a wetlands field trip. We also were lucky enough to go to Rye, NH to go on a whale watch. While we were there, we saw a finback whale and her calf. We saw a humpback whale and a pod of dolphins.
    We have a buddy program with Ms. Hibbard's second grade. We work in the garden with them. Our school garden has a lot of different vegetables in it. We grew butternut squash, zucchinis, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, lettuce, black beans, garlic, basil and parsley. We planted last year in the spring and harvested this fall.
    Most of our class is involved with band. Mr. Bowers is the conductor and our band teacher. We have concerts during the year and in the spring, we march in the Memorial Day Parade.
    We are going to get  new playground equipment installed this fall. It looks great and we can't wait to be able to be playing on it for the next two years.
    We think fifth grade is the best group of kids in the school! All of our teachers love us and we love to learn.