TOP 5 VIRTUAL DESTINATIONS:
5th Grade Reading
Mrs. Scheuer & Mrs. Tirella
In Oak Hill Academy’s fifth grade reading, students travel the world without leaving the classroom! In the best private school in New Jersey, students transport themselves to far way places via well-written, beautifully illustrated literature, novels, short stories, poetry, and news articles. Our virtual passports stamped five countries and four continents. Our top picks include:
#5 Ghana, Africa
In Wonders Literature Anthology “One Hen”, students found themselves in a small village in the Ashanti region. The villagers do not have a lot to eat or very much money, but they do have a good idea. They pool their savings, giving each family an opportunity to borrow all of the savings to buy something important. Kojo’s big idea – One Hen to lay eggs for him and his mother to eat and eventually sell at market. Kojo’s business grows by steadily thanks to some amazing tv and billboard advertising. Kojo pays it forward by helping a neighbor, Adika realize her dream of owning a mechanical mill to turn grain to flour.
#4 Montreal, Canada
Our Surprises! series took us back in time to the French-speaking neighborhood of Prince Edward Street. In “A Secret for Two”, Pierre Dupin, a milkman for Provincale Milk Company and his horse, Joseph completed their route without a complaint for nearly fifteen years. The ironic twist…neither the owner of the company nor his co-workers realized Pierre lost his eyesight many years prior.
#3 India to England
Close Reading of Complex Texts provided an excerpt from The Secret Garden. Burnett’s description of the sky, temperature, and humidity in India gave readers sharp contrast to the climate in Mary’s Yorkshire, England location.
#2 Jiangsu, China to Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Storyworks magazine posed the question, “Would You Sail on the (New) Titanic?” The maiden voyage of the Titanic II is set to sail in December 2018. Ticket prices range from $600,000 to $1,200,000. The consensus of the class, we will skip the initial trip and wait to sail in the summer of 2019.
Drum roll please…
#1 Yosemite National Park California, USA
Wonders Literature Anthology introduced us to President Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, and Yosemite National Park in “Camping with the President.” ThingLink, Padlet, and QR Code projects brought reading classes to Half Dome, Bridalveil Falls, the Merced River, El Capitan, Yosemite Falls, Grizzly Giant, and the Mariposa Grove. Visit our class Padlets on Mrs. Scheuer’s and Mrs. Tirella’s faculty websites.
Our next virtual itinerary will take the best school in Monmouth County to the ice cores in Antarctica, Native American Games We Play in Canada and United States, Tanzania Africa to meet doctors working for Smile Train, and to Independence Hall, Philadelphia, PA in “Who Wrote the U.S. Constitution?”
Oak Hill Academy 
