Students have been studying the Age of Discovery and have learned about the expeditions of various famous explorers. However, questions remain. Did exploration primarily only happen during that time? Were Europeans the only ones to explore? What forms of exploration...

Students were treated to two great guest speakers (that also happen to be parents) this week on the topic of exploration. Our first guest speaker, Paul Fuhs spoke briefly to the students about navigation with a sexton and chronometer. Our second speaker, Lorraine...

At PNA put a lot of focus into the 4 C's, which are creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication. Collaboration can come in many forms from working together on projects, to collaborative problem solving, to just helping each other from time to time....

How can we make graphing fun? Let's graph interesting things! What is the rate of dehydration of a carrot? Let's graph it! What is the rate or re-hydration of a carrot? What are the foot lengths of students? What are the heights of students? These are some of the...

5th grade has begun our unit on Exploration with the question, why do we explore? To dig into this question a little further, students interviewed a parent about a time when they explored, whether in the form of a travel adventure or outdoor adventure. Students...

We finished up our ecosystems with a couple of projects. As part of our study of decomposition, students created mold terrariums that are all the same except for one variable of their choosing. Students have data sheets where they evaluate their terrariums over the...

Why do we play games as part of our morning meeting ritual? The games can have benefits beyond just having fun. The social benefits of games include creating deeper friendships social cohesion among all peers. This benefit easily translates into more successful...

And they’re off! Although students have been planning their novels for weeks, PNA 5th grade students began the most ambitious writing project of their lives. Students are participating in National Novel Writer’s Month (nicknamed NaNoWriMo) and will be tackling the...

This week, we had class at the Anchorage Museum. We had three different “classes” while we were there. First, we visited the brand new Alaska exhibit to study real artifacts and look at how cultures have changed in response to exploration and colonization. Exploration...

Have you ever wondered where a food originated? Or, have you ever wondered what a crop may have looked like prior to domestication? In 5th grade, we've been exploring the origins of common American foods that were originally domesticated by Native American farmers....