November 11, 2022 — Mid-Conference Life

Humanities with Hilary

Dear 4th Grade Families,

Thank you so much for coming out to conferences these past two Thursdays. It was so wonderful to get to meet some of you (or re-connect with you), and to sit and talk about your fabulous fourth grader!

We are finally at the end of our [realistic] fiction writing unit. Let me tell you we have some very imaginative writers in this grade. Stories about migrating ants, body switching, clones, snowball fights, dog adoption, and more! We can’t wait for you to be able to read them during the Publishing Party on Wednesday, Dec 14 at 9:00 am. In these stories, we included an organized story structure, character motivation/struggles, descriptive language, and dialogue (to name a few). **Please know that for spelling, the students highlighted words they needed help with spelling — any word not highlighted is from them

In Social Studies, our main focus has been the mid-term election. We talked about the branches of government (and positions inside each branch), why we vote, the different political parties, the electoral college, newspaper bias, and the election results. When we were looking at past years’ results in New York State (for governor), we noticed a trend — while most counties had a majority vote for the Republican candidate, the Democratic candidate won through the popular vote. Using the New York Times website for the 2018 NYS Governor election, we looked at the number of people who voted in each county and compared the counties. Through this, we started to realize that counties with large urban areas yield a much higher voter count than NYS’s rural counties, and that is why New York State as a whole tends to vote Democratic. This website provides a cartogram map of NYS (for the democratic candidates in the 2014 NYS Governor Election), which shows how New York counties would look based on population instead of the typically drawn lines. We then started looking at the electoral college map, which has a total of 538 votes and a majority vote of 270 votes. Without looking at it as red states and blue states, we explored this map by thinking “Which states would I need to have on my side in order to hit 270 exactly?” Some pictures in the blog are from this whole-grade activity. For homework, students answered the question of “what is the least number of states I would need on my side in order to get to 270 exactly?” A challenge for some students was to find the highest number of states needed to get to 270. A few students commented that all you need to do is look for states with larger electoral votes or lower electoral votes (respectively) in order to complete the homework. This website, https://www.270towin.com/ , has an interactive map that shows how a state votes can change which side the electoral votes go to. Have fun exploring the site!

We also looked at social classes in the Colonial era. We explored how they were similar — and yet slightly different — based on the section of colonies you lived in. The half groups also participated in a colonial debate about if we should build a new meeting house in 1650 New England. Some students were landowners, farmers, or artisans, while others played the part of an enslaved person or a wife. Students had to follow the rules of the time, which stated that only higher-up males in the social classes were allowed to talk during their meetings. While this was a very productive debate, allowing students who are normally quiet a chance to shine, it was also a frustrating experience for students who had to remain quiet. After the debate, those players were allowed a chance to talk (while we listened) about their experiences and how it could relate to the colonist experience in the 1600s and 1700s. A clip from this debrief, with 4B, has been added to the Google Photo album. Some really insightful comments were made by the four students who were not allowed a voice!

As a not-academic topic, 4th Graders got to have a(n extra) recess with their Kindergarten buddies this week! We first created a “secret” handshake with the kindergarteners. Then we played “Sharks and Sailors” as well as “Four Corners.” We can’t wait for the next recess we get to spend with them! (Promise that we will be meeting up with them at least once before then) Pictures of this day, with some videos, can be found on the Google Photo Album.

DATES TO REMEMBER:

Monday, November 21 –> Kesher Day
Thursday, November 24 and Friday November 25 –> NO SCHOOL
- if your child will not be in school this week, please email the team ASAP so that we can plan accordingly. Thank you!
Wednesday, December 14 @ 9am –> 4th Grade Publishing Party

Hebrew with Rimma

4th graders finished writing reviews for the restaurant. The students learned what is the purpose of this and how to persuade readers to go to the restaurant or avoid a particular food establishment. The students learned the expression כדאי plus infinitive (it is worth to …)

They describe their experience in the past tense and learned the past tense for the verb to be -היה / היתה/היו

They wrote a brief description of the restaurant: name, location, price, special dishes, about the service , the atmosphere etc

The students learned some descriptive adjectives and how to use them in the right gender and singular or plural form depending on the noun.

Our next speaking project is role-playing situations in the restaurant: how to order food, how to complain if something is not good etc. In writing students will create their own menus.

STEAM with Sammi

In science, students have taken a break from community-building skills to focus on some technology skills. The 4th graders are currently working through The Google Slide Challenge, an assignment that teaches them the many wonderful things they can do on Google Slides! These skills will be used in Hilary’s class come December when students put together presentations for their publishing party.

Math with Luis

Math has been a wild ride these past three weeks! We tackled two-digit by two-digit multiplication, which meant we had to really understand how to break up numbers in order to multiply them. We settled on “top times the ones, top times the tens. Add them together, and there’s you answer!” as the cleanest way to remember breaking apart operations into more manageable ones.

Then….came long division….cue the scary music! There were many (at first) negative, rebellious, and nervous feelings about long division … how does that even work? Slowly, 4th graders are getting comfortable with the algorithm, and comparing their favorite mnemonic devices for remembering Divide, Multiply, Subtract, Bring Down:

Does McDonalds Sell Burgers?
Don’t Make Sushi Bad!
Dogs Make Bones Slobbery

…and many other very useful ways to remember the steps of long division. We’re going to practice these skills a lot more in the coming weeks. In addition to these skills, we’ve also been practicing our multiplication tables and facts at the beginning of each class. We’ll be making flashcards next week for the harder facts so that we can practice at home, as well.

Music with Heidi

In Music class, Fourth Graders have started their xylophone unit. They have learned our xylophone protocols and have played major, minor and pentatonic scales. This week, they used the pentatonic scale to make up melodies with a partner – which was great practice in working together to create something wonderful!

Judaics with Shira

This past Monday was the Yahrzeit of Hannah Senesh, which we commemorated by lighting a memorial candle and singing Eli, Eli in tefilah. In class we started a new unit about her life. Students remembered much about Hannah’s childhood and family from their learning last year, and have been excited to start to learn more about World War Two and Hannah’s experience with anti-semitism in middle school. Our focus is on key world events (such as the start and end of the war) and major events in Hannah’s life between the years 1921 and 1950. Students were split into 7 groups, with each group focusing on one chunk of the timeline. We are examining questions such as, how did events in the world affect decisions that Hannah made in her life, and what do Hannah’s choices tell us about her character.