Math with Justin

4th Graders are continuing to study geometry after finishing their unit on angles and lines. Now they have begun to tackle types of triangles, quadrilaterals, and their different properties. The students have been playing a ‘Guess Who’ game with different quadrilaterals where they use their geometric knowledge and vocabulary to figure out which trapezoid, rectangle, square, parallelogram, rhombus, or kite is the secret shape on Desmos. You can play too!

Humanities with Hilary

Dear 4th Grade Families,

I refuse to listen to everyone around me, who says how little time we have until the end of the year. THERE IS SO MUCH TO DISCUSS!! We have some abolitionists to discuss, such as Frederick Douglass, as well as the Civil War and Reconstruction in our future.

Over the past two weeks, we have been talking about the evolution of slavery in America. Ask your student about Elizabeth Keys and Anthony Johnson — what was “slavery” like when they were alive (before 1670) and how did slavery change after that, specifically in Virginia? What happened with the Fugitive Slave Clause, in our Constitution, and how did the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 differ from it? How did people react to these rules? What big compromises were made in our country, in 1820 followed by 1850? We read aloud the picture book, The 1619 Project Born on the Water, by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renee Watson, illustrated by Nikklas Smith, and we made connections between the Black experience of the time to the Jewish experience throughout history and human rights experiences today. This group really had firm opinions and feelings about right and wrong!

Our Writing unit is currently connected to reading, because we are creating biographies about an experience or a person from our American history. Students have worked on taking notes from a website or a video, and then deciding on which notes are the most important. We also thought long and hard about WHY that person or event is the one that is talked about today –> why not a different person or a different event? Next week, we will work on connecting the person or event to a Hannah Senesh school value, as well as learn how to make a time line.

Finally, here is a link to pictures from Yom HaAtzmaut … as well as a link for boomerangs I made of the kids during recess. Maybe a little over the top, but boy did we have fun choreographing them! Please enjoy!

Yom HaAtzmaut

Boomerangs

Here is a video of a few students having fun during our extra recess, while playing in the rain:

As always, Shabbat Shalom all! Have a restful weekend, and stay dry!

Judaic Studies with Shira

These past two weeks have been all about special days in the Jewish calendar: Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Rememberance Day), Yom Ha’zikaron (Israeli Memorial Day), and Yom Ha’atzmaut (Israeli Independence Day. Last week students read the book “The Butterfly” about a Jewish child who is hidden my a French family during the Holocaust. The story is told from the perspective of another child living in the home and is based on true events. It paired nicely with the testimony we heard from Leni Wesley who recounted her own experiences being hidden in three different locations during the war. The fourth graders had many questions and comments about these accounts. We reflected on all we heard through these sentence starters:

• What surprised you?
• What was most powerful for you?
• What was difficult for you?
• What question do you have?
• What gave you hope?

Students typed heartfelt thankyou notes to Leni working off of these same sentence starters.

Here is an example of one of the beautiful notes that students wrote:

 

Dear Leni,  

Thank you for telling your story that was hard, sad, and probably difficult to say.

 It was difficult to hear that you did not see your little brother again since I have a little brother so it scared me alittle.

When you were telling that you got separated from your family I could not believe that it happened and how you did not break into tears.(I would break into tears really badly.) 

It gave me hope when you said that you and your parents got back together and that the Nazis were defeated.

A question that I have is: do you still miss your brother?

Sincerely,

Aviv

 

This week was all about Israel. Students were challenged to work in groups to create tourist advertisement of a place in Israel. They worked to create posters by hand or on canva, complete with photos, slogans, and activity ideas. Yesterday we participated in school wide activities and had a great time eating pickles, learning a dance from 7th graders, drawing with chalk outside, and enjoying an Israeli snack of Bisli!

Music with Heidi

In Music class, Fourth Graders have been preparing songs that reflect their studies of American History for their end of year performance. Today, students took home lyrics for the “American” songs, so that they can practice and memorize them. Please look for them in your student’s backpack

Science with Sammi

Since we returned from spring break, the 4th graders have started their final science unit: food chemistry. To start off this unit, we have been discussing what we already know about food, why we eat certain foods at certain times of the day, why different people around the world eat different foods, what foods we consider healthy and unhealthy, and why we consider foods healthy or unhealthy. We’ve had a lot of healthy debates! Next week, we will begin learning about carbohydrates and how they support our bodies. We will also learn how to test foods to see if they have carbohydrates in them.