Coming Up This Week....

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving break!  It is a great little break for the kids and gets them ready for the month of December!

Immigration Re-Enactment

      Last Wednesday, we had our Immigration Re-Enactment.  It was so neat to see the kids all dressed up in their "fancy" clothes!  They were very excited to travel back to 1901 as they arrived at school.  On Wednesday morning they put a few finishing touches onto their immigrant character including answering an Inspection Questionnaire that was common for immigrants arriving at Ellis Island to complete.  They also decided on their immigrant name and the country that they came from.

      After preparing for the journey, they walked to the boat called The Fox that would take them to America!  Then each immigrant went through the 8 different "stops" at Ellis Island. Some got to experience being a first class citizen, while most were third class citizens and faced many obstacles.

      It was a great experience and I am hoping that the students learned a lot and enjoyed it as much as I did!

     Here are some pictures of the passengers of The Fox!

Reading Workshop
     We have spent a lot of time in reading workshop talking about character change as well as describing characters in more depth by thinking about their motivations and struggles.  This week we will be starting to learn about inferring the theme of a book.  One way that we talk about theme is by using the following visual,,,  THE  MEssage.  We will spend a while reading many short stories, picture books, and fables to practice this skill.

Math Workshop

      We will be starting division this week in math.  In fourth grade the students will not learn the standard algorithm for division as it is not one of our standards.  They will learn a few strategies for solving division problems however, and will be able to choose the strategy that works best for them. I will remind the kids this week, but if your child has trouble completing the homework this week, please remind him/her to use the Homework Helper packet which was handed out at the beginning of the unit.

I hope everyone has a great week!  

~Jen