Hebrew Heritage with Tomer

The beautiful snow and being at home allowed the 4th grade Heritage students reflect and explore winter. They wrote of their different experiences such as building a snow man with their family, wrote poems the winter they can observe from their windows, and of the experience of studying from home.

Judaic Studies with Phyllis

Humanities with Hilary

Dear 4th Grade Families,

What a beautiful snow we received this past week! It was a magical background to our zoom classes, on Monday and Tuesday, and became an inspiration for changing our current writing unit’s thesis. In opinion writing, the focus this year is making sure  we (as writers) are very specific with our reasons and examples. We want to make sure that the reasons support our thesis — or main idea — and that our examples are supporting our reasons. Fourth Grade is working on rereading their work (to revise), and taking out extraneous information. The students have become very impassioned with the thesis of “We need to have our snow days back because …” and this passion adds to the persuasive voice they are using.  An example of this is when one student wrote, “What do you think is better for you: sitting and staring at a screen all day OR being outside playing in the snow?” While some students include reasons for needing a snow day to be about watching movies or playing games, others are thinking deeply by discussing the physical differences they feel when in Zoom Class compared to playing outside, or the emotional differences they feel because a snow day would provide them more opportunities to bond with siblings and/or parents. We can’t wait to see the final product of this writing!

We are starting a new format for book clubs, this semester! In my search for book club text choices that represent different voices, I was having trouble finding books that are both age-appropriate and theme-appropriate. In discussions with Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project, an institute our school works closely with, we came to a PERFECT solution — use picture books which are: leveled; informative; short (so students can read multiple books over the four weeks); in DIFFERENT and diverse voices. As students work with 1-2 partners in reading the text, they are also answering questions, such as : who is named in the book; where does this book take place; what occupations do these people have, and how do these jobs support either side in the American Revolutionary War; what questions do you have before starting the book, and what questions do you leave the book with; and where are the black people in this story? 4th Graders are in agreement that they enjoy this new structure to book club because they are looking forward to reading multiple books AND getting to work with new people!

In Social Studies, we finished learning about the Road to Revolution last week.

When learning about the Townshed Acts, we decide to stand alongside the colonists and create our own boycott signs! With the Townshed Acts of 1767, British Parliament decide to tax the colonists on many imports, such as paper, paint, glass, tools, and tea. The colonists decided to have a peaceful protest — similar to peaceful protests during the Civil Rights Movement — by not supporting British merchants and only buying materials from artisans in the colony. Many colonists also refused to sell natural resources, such as timber, indigo, cotton or sugar cane, to England until the Townshed Acts were cancelled. In 1770, there was a partial repeal on this Act (decided by the British Parliament) where the tax was lifted off EVERYTHING except for tea.

This week,  we explored the Battle of Bunker Hill (which was actually fought on a nearby high ground area called Breed’s Hill) and the Second Continental Congress. As well, we started to explore songs from musicals to help us understand what was happening at this time.

• “Farmer’s Refuted” from Hamilton –> a response, to the First Continental Congress, by a loyalist
• “You’ll Be Back” from Hamilton –> King George III’s response to the petition the First Continental Congress wrote him
• “Sit Down, John” from 1776 –> how the Second Continental Congress felt during their first year working together, trying to make decisions during a heat wave in Philadelphia
• “But Mr. Adams” from 1776 –> descriptions about Benjamin Franklin (PA), John Adams (MA), Roger Sherman (CT), Robert Livingston (NY), and Thomas Jefferson (VA), the five delegates chosen to work on the Declaration to England. In this, they were deciding who would be the main writer … do you remember who it was?
  • • John Adams quoted Thomas Jefferson by saying ” … With one mind resolve to die free men rather than to live slaves” (which he wrote in “The Necessity of Take Up Arms” in 1775)
      • 4th Graders discussed what it meant for Jefferson to compare colonists to enslaved people … while still having slaves of their own

 For certain songs, like “You’ll Be Back,” we annotated the song, discussing how it connected to what we learned from our lessons on the war. This is an activity we will continue to do as we get further into The American Revolutionary War — relating musical lyrics to historical facts.

Shabbat shalom, everyone!

Science with Sammi

Over the last few weeks, the 4th graders have continued putting the scientific method into practice. While remote in January, they completed “The Alka Seltzer Lab” where they investigated what temperature water caused an Alka Seltzer tablet to dissolve the fastest. When making hypotheses, many predicted that hot water would cause the tablet to dissolve the fastest because things melt in the heat. While they might not have been surprised to discover that was true, they were very surprised by the drastic difference in time between the icy cold water and the hot water. Some of the cold water trials took up to 15 minutes for the Alka Seltzer to completely dissolve! While analyzing the results of this lab, the students began to learn about averages. This important mathematical concept is something we will continuously review this year as we apply it across our experiments to analyze results and form conclusions.

Music with Heidi

Fourth Graders have begun a new unit, Powerful Voices. Up until now, we have been cultivating our own powerful musical voices in Bandlab. Now, we will examine songs from a variety of genres and time periods to see what in their content, structure, performance and historical context makes them powerful enough to positively change individuals, a community, a culture, the world.