The author is surprised every year when fifth-grade students react to the study of biomes as if they've never given any thought to the differences across parts of the world. Sure, they've all heard of the tropical rain forest and the desert, but it seems as though they think the rest of the world is just some undefined area with climate, animals,…

Background: Recent literature has identified that children's performance on cognitive (or problem-solving) tasks can be enhanced when undertaken as a joint activity among pairs of pupils. Performance on this "social" activity will require quality relationships between pupils, leading some researchers to argue that friendships are characterized by…

Students in a fifth-grade general education class and a second-grade gifted class participated in the Triangular Bicycle Flags problem. The results indicated that providing students with geometric experiences at the correct van Hiele level is necessary for helping students move from one level of understanding to the next.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the effect of an eight-week health-related fitness and nutrition education program on fitness components and dietary habits in upper elementary school students. Forty children from the fifth and sixth grade, 10 to 12 years of age (M= 11.2, SD= 1.1), participated in the study. The experimental…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to describe parents' perceptions of their 5th grade child's physical education program. Twenty seven parents were interviewed regarding the types of information they currently have and the sources from which that information came. Results indicated that many parents possessed inaccurate information…

This article develops a situative approach to explaining the transfer of learning, illustrating it using a challenging-to-explain case from a Fostering Communities of Learners classroom. The case involved a group of 5th graders who learned and then transferred a more sophisticated way of explaining species survival and endangerment despite…

Each year, about 70 4th- and 5th-grade students from an elementary school in an Indiana urban area participate in an extracurricular social studies enrichment program called the Clio Club. Clio is derived from the Greek muse of history, and the club offers a variety of activities to help students discover and interpret social studies beyond the…

It all started with a night of bowling in Austin, Texas, when fifth-grade student Amit had an evening of fun with his grandparents. When Amit returned to his home in Lubbock, TX, and tried to replicate his newfound recreation, his night of bowling fun ended after 10 minutes in an asthma attack. His second attempt at Lubbock bowling also brought a…

Using WebQuests for inquiry-based learning represents a higher-order use of technology requiring students to exercise information seeking, analyzing, and synthesizing strategies. This research was designed to obtain a better understanding of how to enhance the pedagogical effectiveness of WebQuests and of how students interact with the various…

Describes a project used with fifth-grade students in which they learned about animation. Explains that the students learned about animation used in art. States that they received a personal data assistant to create their own animation of a flower that was growing and pollinated by a butterfly. (CMK)

In this article, the author talks about the "December 7, 1941 Project," a partnership between Honolulu Theatre for Youth (HTY) and a local elementary school. The project brought together 4th and 5th grade students and teachers with community elders, artists and parents, using oral history and drama education to investigate memories…

A pedometer is a practical, inexpensive tool used to measure physical activity. Bassett et al. (1996) found that interinstrument consistency of the Yamax Digi-Walker was higher than four other pedometers when measuring distance walked in adults. The purpose of this study was to investigate the interinstrument consistency of the Yamax pedometer in…

In this project, narrative was constructed by Grade 5 students using learning technologies (cameras, computers and multimedia software) through three-dimensional cartoon animations, or "claymation", and the creativity that emerged was at times startling. Narrative need not be interpreted narrowly and monomodally. It emerged that…

Groups of first-grade (mean age = 82 months), third-grade (mean age = 107 months), and fifth-grade (mean age = 131 months) children with a learning disability in mathematics (MD, n=58) and their normally achieving peers (n = 91) were administered tasks that assessed their knowledge of counting principles, working memory, and the strategies used to…

Research suggests component skill performance has a strong positive relationship with composite skill performance. This study examined the association between accuracy and fluency for the component-composite relationship within multiplication. One hundred and fifty-seven fifth-graders did one-minute assessments for single-digit, and multi-digit…