Humanities with Hilary

Dear Fourth Grade Families,

Can you believe it’s almost 2021? This year is speeding by so quickly! We have our fall publishing party on Thursday, December 17 where this grade will be showing off what they have learned in Hebrew, Judaic Studies, humanities, art and music. They are such rock stars! 🤩

• 4A — 11:00-11:45
• 4B — 1:00-1:45
• 4C — 10:00-10:45

Now let’s find out what the kiddos have been learning these past few weeks!

In reading, we are almost done with our book club books. Students have been focusing a lot on the skill of figuring out hard or complex words based on the context of the sentence/paragraph. Sometimes the word we find to be hard is the name of an Indigenous American character, or a word in their language. We have also been working on asking deep, open questions that get conversation started within their small groups.

For writing, we are almost finished with our Publishing Party PowerPoint slides! In Science, the 4th Grade learned how to create a PowerPoint slide on Google Slides, and what all of the buttons on the tool bar mean. We have used that knowledge to support our work. Each student has been researching different aspects on one of the 13 Colonies. They categorized their information into different topics, such as geography/landforms/mapping, natural resources/farming/agriculture, government, clothing, and fun facts. 4th Graders are currently working on their PowerPoint slides, turning their research into either bullet points, pictures with labels/captions, or paragraphs. A quote straight from one pod, about the process: “We’re researching about the 13 Colonies, and different topics like ‘houses, geography, school, clothing’ and that kind of stuff. And then we’re making Google Slides about it. It’s pretty fun [to make our Google Slides]! Now that we know how to use it, because of Sammi, it’s really easy to use.” Another pod said, “We’re making a google slideshow about the 13 Colonies, where we each get one colony. We are learning about the colony by research, like what people wore and where they lived back then. It started with research from books, and then researching on websites. We’re now animating our slideshows. On our last slide, we need to persuade our audience that the colony we researched is THE best colony that Britain has!”

Currently, in Social Studies, we are switching gears and talking about Black History a bit earlier than normal. Our focus, this year, is how Black people used the arts to express their feelings or show visuals of their experiences in America. We started by learning about the Great Migration, to understand more about what was happening in the South and why people moved to the north. Their reasons were very similar to reasons that people emigrated from Europe at the turn of the century — such as searching for equal rights, ownership of land, getting away from war or persecution, or job opportunities. Did you know that by 1930, 10% of the Black population had fled from the South, moving north or Westward, and that by 1970 about HALF of the Black population had left their homes in the South?!

We also looked at some artwork created in the mid-1900s, during the Harlem Renaissance. Specifically, 4th Grade looked at the work of:

• Aaron Douglas
• James Lesesne Wells
• Archibald J Motley Jr
• Allan Rohan Crite
• Palmer Hayden
• William H Johnson

Next week, we will be exploring jazz music and poetry created during this time period, and how to shed light on aspects of the Black experience in America.

Shabbat Shalom, everyone!

 

Math-Snow Fun with Justin

 

 

 

Hebrew Heritage with Tomer

In the 4th grade Hebrew heritage the group joined the other Hebrew group in the lead of Rimma to practice a play for the end of the year publishing party. We also practiced reading and morals, then writing exercises. 

Hebrew with Rimma

 

 

Judaic Studies with Phyllis

Happy Chanukah!  Ask your fourth graders about the Real Story of Chanukah!!! They were shocked to find out that a certain miracle is missing from the Book of Maccabees. We will be focusing this year on the mitzvah of advertising the miracle of Chanukah. Check out the amazing chanukiyah we made for the Senesh front window so we can let Carroll Gardens know about the incredible miracles of the holiday. We also read a fantastic Chelm story. Next week we will check out the source of the mitzvah and think about what it meant to Jews living in “times of danger.” We will focus in on the story of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews after reading about Emanuel, a Portuguese Jew in colonial times whose father was initially afraid to publicly light the Chanukiyah. 

 

Science with Sammi

This week, the fourth graders officially moved from the “T” to the “S” in S.T.E.A.M. That means the students have graduated from 4th-grade technology boot camp and we have officially jumped into our science curriculum! Our first science unit is “The Scientific Method”. So far students have learned a scientific method song (which will definitely get stuck in their heads as we keep playing it in class), reviewed the steps of the scientific method, and began applying the steps in a short m&m lab. Each lab in this unit will provide the students with new skills such as writing a detailed hypothesis, making graphs, and using data to support a conclusion. The fourth graders will be very sophisticated scientists when the unit is complete!

 

Music with Heidi

This week, each third grader is honing a specific ukulele skill to share with families for their publishing party. This is an opportunity to celebrate their learning! Videos are due on Seesaw by the end of the week. We’re looking forward to sharing all of the fruits of their practice with you!

 

Art with Iviva

Students have been working on storyboards, paper puppets and small sculptures to make stop motion animations using a Chrome App. This multi-week project will continue into 2021.