The Carbon School District update took time to shine a spotlight on Sally Mauro Elementary this week and Castle Country Radio was able to speak with Fifth Grade Teacher, Camille Carmack to discuss all the details.

The students are busily working through the third quarter which is a demanding time of instruction before end of the year testing begins.  “We’ve been getting into school since Christmas break and third quarter is always the time that we learn the most. There aren’t as many breaks and interruptions and so we learn a lot and try to get a lot done in third quarter so we’ve been doing a lot of that,” stated Mrs. Carmack. The third quarter will end on March 17 and the fourth quarter will begin that Monday on March 21.

Fifth graders have been actively working on improving writing skills. “In fifth grade we do get tested, fifth graders get tested at the end of the year on writing and so we’ve been concentrating on opinion writing, we write five paragraph essays. Some of the things my students have been writing about are Should we feed wild birds in the winter? Writing a whole five paragraph essay about that,” explained Mrs. Carmack. Most recently the students each wrote an essay on Should students have cell phones in school? The students have really enjoyed stating their opinions on this particular essay this week. Once they complete opinion writing they will move into informative writing which are both subjects they will need to know for the end of the year testing.

Not only are fifth grade students improving their writing skills but they are also taking time to learn some science concepts. “We’re also doing a lot of science, we enjoy the science, we just are finishing up a unit on matter, the states of matter, and what matter is. We’ve done a few experiments to distinguish between physical and chemical changes and that’s been a lot of fun,” stated Mrs. Carmack. The students really enjoy the hands-on experiments that they get to do after each unit because it helps them to understand the concept better.

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