S.T.E.A.M. with Sammi

I missed the last blog post, so here comes a big catch up! For a few classes, the 4th graders put their science work aside to focus on technology. Students worked through “The Google Slide Challenge” which involved learning and practicing 35 different Google Slide skills. They then put these skills to use in Hilary’s class to make the marvelous presentations you saw at the publishing party.

Over the last three weeks, we have now gotten back into our “Scientific Community” unit where students work in teams to complete challenges. First, students built towers with spaghetti and marshmallows. While working on this, it became evident that we needed to learn a bit more about strong shapes, so we spent two classes looking at domes, squares, and triangles and examining real world bridges to see how these 3 shapes work together to form sturdy structures. We are now applying that knowledge to index card bridges. With 30 index cards and a roll of masking tape, how much weight do you think our bridges can hold?!

Click here to check out pictures from our classes this year: https://photos.app.goo.gl/PkZ6soqH6r2HGdfh8

Judaics with Shira

Last week you saw students beautiful presentations at the Publishing Party. In Judaics, students had the choice of adding a poster on the topic of Chanukah or Hannah Senesh. Students like Bryce and Abby, pictured below, who chose Chanukkah, shared drawings based on the Shulchan Orech that we learned talking about where to light a chanukiya. Students like Galia, pictured below, who chose the topic of Hannah Senesh, compiled a collage of their individual contributions to our class timeline that was presented at Kesher Day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All students had the opportunity to make holiday cards for seniors in JASA housing. This social action project came to us through the endeavors of Maryam, one of our JOCI fellows (Jews of Color Initiative). Maryam told us about the work of JASA  (Jewish Association Serving the Aging). We learned about elder neglect specific to NYC and brainstormed what we could write to make seniors feel cared about during the holidays. Maryam also shared more about her own background celebrating different holidays as a child from an interfaith family and who lived in India for a few years. Thank you Maryam for organizing this great project!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hebrew with Rimma

Students had plenty of opportunities to practice new vocabulary related to clothing: what they wear in cold/hot weather, to school or during leisure time, to the gym etc. We regularly recap and reinforce previously learned structures, agreements between nouns and adjectives, nouns and verbs in gender (masculine and feminine) and number (singular and plural).

Students were exposed to the new vocabulary related to description of their room. They watched a video clip and described the room according to the picture. The description included several example sentences that were used as a model. The students will continue with preparing a mini project. They will draw their ideal room and will describe and present it to the class.

Math with Justin

 

 

 

Humanities with Hilary

Dear 4th Grade Families,

I cannot believe that 2021 is almost at an end. We have learned and accomplished SO MUCH over these 60+ days of school. In Social Studies, students have become experts in the history of America before the 1750s. In reading, students are learning how to think more deeply about their book club books by asking open questions, making connections, and finding key details. They learned how to find pertinent information in non-fiction texts, and categorize that information into groups/different headings. In writing, we have worked on creating stories that have a beginning/middle/end, that include a problem with a solution, developed meaningful characters, and worked on how to pick more specific and detailed word choices.

Over the past two weeks, we started to delve into our Civil Rights unit. In 4th Grade, we begin by looking at the Great Migration (what it is, why it happened, etc), and then go into the Harlem Renaissance.

The first thing we do, as investigators, is talk about why people move (and moved between 1890 and 1970) and where they moved to. For instance, if you look at this map from 1890 and compare it to the map from 1960, there is a lot your student can teach you about what pushed the black community to move to different locations. They can also explain these maps to you:

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We then analyzed paintings and photographs taken during the Great Migration, to discuss what we see in the picture and infer what that might mean based on our prior information.

We started talking about the Harlem Renaissance this week. We started by discussing how “renaissance” means “rebirth,” and in small groups students tried to figure out what “rebirth” means and how that connects to this time period of the Harlem Renaissance from approximately 1910s to 1950s. We then did something hard, but these two groups of students really rose to the occasion. The class analyzed a poem written in 1919 (“If We Must Die,” written by the Jamaican-American writer Claude McKay) and when I say they blew me away with their whole group analysis — that would be an UNDERSTATEMENT! Some of their thoughts:

• “we will not be killed where no one cares” (lines 1 and 2)
• “we’re being penned in cages/captured like we don’t have feelings or hearts” (lines 1 and 2)
• “if we die, let us die as people who have rights and are not scared everyday about getting captured or hurt JUST because of our skin color” (lines 5 and 6)
• “even the people against us will see us as heroic and noble” (lines 7 and 8)
• “we need to reach the people to help them see OUR way, not the racist way” (line 9)
• “though we’re outnumbered and don’t have as many people, let us show you that we are brave” (lines 9 and 10)
• “they outnumber us, but it only takes one battle for us to win — we want to make sure this doesn’t repeat in our future” (lines 10 and 11)
• “when we go into this we know that not all of us are going to live, but we’re going to do everything we can to save as many people” (lines 13 and 14)
• “we should get equal rights. We’ll face the racists and even if some die, we’ll get back up and keep trying” (lines 13 and 14)

The BIG project 4th grade gets to present on Friday, January 14, is an excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. We got the opportunity to listen to a majority of his speech yesterday, and were astounded by how amazing Dr King was as an orator! Next week, we will examine the speech even more to understand what he was trying to say (and why), which will then help US to add emotion to our lines for this presentation.

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It was wonderful seeing y’all at the publishing party last week. This group of 4th graders has SO MUCH to be proud of, and we hope you were able to see that!

Shabbat shalom,

Hilary