Read All About It: Lace Fifth Graders Create a Newspaper

If you are flipping through the stories of the first ever edition of The Daily Drool Newspaper, you’d notice headlines like “Gas Prices on the Rise,” “Winter in New York City,” and "Around the World in Three Traditions” mixed in with what feels like familiar newspaper sections. Reviews of movies and TV shows are featured along travel tips, an in depth look at the Winter Olympics, and even a controversial opinion piece claiming that the Green Bay Packers are better than the Chicago Bears. There are comics, sports reporting, games to play, and even ads for Lace spirit gear and Koosh balls. It has everything you’d expect to find in a newspaper. Except this one was written by fifth graders!

Fifth Grade Teacher Rachel Parish found that she had a group of students in her WIN (What I Need) class who were ready for some enrichment activities that would allow for more creativity. She decided to combine a few topics and interests into one project with a student-created newspaper, which evolved into The Daily Drool. 

“They really ran with it,” said Parish. “Students were able to choose what they wanted to write about and because they had that sense of choice within the structure of the newspaper, they had a really positive energy around it!”

When the project kicked off, it was not just a free for all where students could do whatever they wanted. Instead they had to apply for different positions on the newspaper staff. From editor in chief to business or travel writer, each spot needed a dedicated individual. 

“You think you know students well enough to know what they will want to write about but it was full of surprises,” said Parish. 

Students were hard at work on the newspaper, even on crazy hair day!

The process started with research. In the three weeks that they worked on the project, students were able to learn newspaper terminology and how to lay out the paper. They also learned the pyramid structure for writing articles and how to highlight the important information in their stories. They worked on their own assignments and got to bring their personalities to their articles.

Konstantin chose to write about business and finance with an informative column about when and how to start building credit for children. Addison and Nile highlighted an important local item, interviewing and spotlighting the custodians at Lace while Samantha opted for a more global story, how to help save endangered species. Miles gave a great report of the Super Bowl while Victoria and Yasmine provided helpful style tips for interior design and fun crafts to try with your kids.

Lucas even provided some motivational poetry with a poem called You Got This which encouraged students to keep a positive mindset when they struggled with school work. “This is all just to say you will have hard moments throughout your life, but just remember you always got this,” he wrote. 

“It was so great to see how kiddos are excited about grown up things like gas prices and incorporating research into the newspaper,” said Parish. “I am impressed with them and glad they loved this because it was an enriching project that was also able to bring joy to their faces.”

We asked some of the students what they thought about the project!

"I loved learning about things I didn't know,” said Baylee.

"It was fun, and I learned how the pros do it," added Konstantin.

"I liked getting to write about a topic of my choice. It was a lot of fun," shared Victoria.

Lucas summed it up well, "I think it was fun, engaging, and interactive!" 

Ultimately, the students really enjoyed everything about the process of making the paper and loved being able to hold the printed version in their hands and get great feedback from their peers. While this activity started as a likely one-time project, the students are already asking what they can do next. 

Check out The Daily Drool to see their work for yourself.