A good read for fifth grade students is The Terrible Wave by Dahlstedt. This easy to read book is a wonderful guided reading book that will also tie in the current event of the Oroville Dam overflow last week. A written assignment may be assigned to followup the reading with a compare and contrast of the current Oroville Dam overflow to the past dam failure in Johnstown, PA. You may want to use a thinking map diagramming cause and effect or a double bubble to find similarities and differences in the dam failures.
https://www.amazon.com/Terrible-Wave-Marden-Dahlstedt/dp/0395459931
Surfside Leadership Academy 