Humanities

By: Mayrin Bravo, Layla Reyes,Marianela Granja, Franyelisy Chavez , Ashley Hernandez, and Arleny Rodriguez

Currently in Humanities, we have been learning so much and doing lots of projects in which we can use real world problems and apply it to our learning. We are so excited to share everything we have done in the pass marking period so far. We hope you like our brief summary on what we have been up to during Quarter 2.

So to start off In Humanities we have been doing an art infusion where we made a personal precept; a precept is a saying that you can live your life by, like a motto. Then we had to make a wonder face that connects to our precept. Not only did it have to connect but it had to be an abstraction of the face. An abstraction is something that make it look like a person but it adds a more imperfect and exaggerated aspect to it. We were inspired by Pablo Picasso and his work. Our last book WONDER is a book about a child who was born with facial differences. It is about the challenges and adventures he faces. We made a wonder map, precept, and song analyzation. For the map we had options on what to do each having a value of points and our goal was to reach 50 points. To basically explain a precept its a goal to look up to. We had to make a precept we think connects not only to Auggie’s life rather to ours as well. We analyzed the song lyrics from the songs they give us right before each part of tpart. We also analyzed quotes and characters.

The Holocaust

We have conducted research projects to learn about specific topics within the Holocaust that we wanted to know more about. The Holocaust was a event that killed and harmed so many families just because they were “accused or assumed” to be more rich, and the cause of Germany losing World War I. We have conducted a research about so many different topics that make up the Holocaust. For example: The leader of the Holocaust (Adolf Hitler), Survivors and Victims, World War 2, Denmark (etc). The Holocaust has impacted so many families, people, and religions. Although some people think that this was a good event, but to us it wasn’t. It is one of the most horrifying events in history. Also with this we have been learning about how fear drives action. This question could go into many different responses. Since Hitler was so powerful,when people did speak up to go against him he sent Nazis to get them and take them away. Some people were so scared off Hitler they fit into the crowd (meaning that they pretended to support Hitler). We were asked if we would stay with the crowd or go against hitler and hide those who were being targeted. Most of us were honest and said we would stay with the crowd because Hitler was so powerful he was capable of lots of things. And most of the people who hide those who were targeted, were found, and killed. This is the reason we as a society need to improve and better ourselves because if not this stuff is going to keep on happening. We need to better ourselves and improve. This stuff needs to stop now because if not we will not improve. The holocaust shouldn’t have happened. It wouldn’t have happened if we all stopped it before it became big.

Terrible Things

The terrible things was our introduction to the Holocaust. For this activity we read the book with a partner and answered some questions. The questions were 1. What do the Animals in the Terrible Things Symbolize? 2. What did the Terrible Things represent? This book is all about symbolism and the Holocaust. What this book is about, is how these terrible things are taking away the animals from their homes. They are taking them away by how they look. They come for some specifics like if they could swim, or if they have tails. Anyways the animals that were not taken away they would be bystanders and talk behind their backs. Sound Familiar? That is because this symbolizes the Holocaust.

Once we were done reading the book we started to answer essential questions. Things like if fear can drive action, or how do people follow the crowd. All in all this book was a preparation of the Holocaust and our newest novel Number The Stars by Lois Lowry. This book is about a girl named Anne Marie and her friend named Ellen. This book takes place in Denmark at the time where the Nazis were invading Scandinavia. Scandinavia includes Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. The family tries to hide Ellen because she is a Jew and they have to make up some things about her that are not true. We are yet to find out what happens next but are ready to follow along in this story.

Genocides

During humanities, students in 5th grade were able to discuss and learn about Genocides. In this discussion we’d give examples from our civilization’s history. A big example of genocide would be the Holocaust which students were doing research on to learn more and present to the whole class about their topic. We had a brainstorm on if it’d be a good idea to do a debate on one theory in history, this is known as a person who murdered over 76 people. This person is David Koresh, we were discussing if what he did is genocide if not. But first, the definition of genocide is a targeted large group of people that is killed. But in this case, he had many people believe in his religion and he told them in order to be in the kingdom with god we must kill ourselves, that's when they drank the punch and died overnight. We were thinking if this was a example of genocide. Going back to the Holocaust, it was genocide because Adolf Hitler targeted a religion of people which were the Jewish people. He had a army of Nazi Soldiers who helped kill these religious people. That’s all for genocide, students are very intrigued to learn more about genocide.

Current Events

Before I get into this topic let me give you a brief overview of what the Holocaust actually is. The Holocaust was a genocide during World War ll where Adolf Hitler brainwashed Germany into believing that the Jews were the ones to blame for them losing World War I. Take a quick note that Hitler was jealous of the Jews because of their businesses, their schools, etc. Basically their overall success in life. His hatred towards the Jews goes under segregation, racism and discriminations. Yes, it is okay to hate something or someone but publicly announcing and it saying horrible things about themis NOT OKAY. Now, let's talk about current events in our society today. Currently similar events happened in today's society, take our president for example. For respectful purposes we will not mention his name. He discriminates against hispanics and latinos by deporting them and giving disrespect speeches out loud to the public. This is also a social injustice because social injustice goes under distrumation which goes along with what our current presidents doing.

Upcoming

For our Shark Tank project we are able to connect all four of our subjects. (Math, Humanities, Science, and Art). For Humanities we are going to create a pitch for our invention. We are creating an invention in Science so that we can solve a problem in an ecosystem. The pitch is our form of persuading the audience into buying the invention. Just as if we were in Shark Tank.

Conclusion

In conclusion we have been having fun learning about topics that are new to us fifth graders. Overall we have developed different skills like, writing, debating, and researching! We all love humanities and are expecting to learn a lot more this school year! :)