The Jackson Heights Project
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The fifteen kids that stayed local during Natures Classroom participated in a community project led by Kate and Jorge, and assisted by substitute Heidi. My vision was for the kids to visit local parks, pizza parlors, and ice cream shops to see who could win for the BEST in Jackson Heights. A week later, I returned to beautiful masterpieces that indicated a task that exceeded my expectation. Students were divided into three groups: Ice Cream, Pizza, and Parks. Each student took the role of either navigator, photographer, or recorder. They interviewed owners, taste tested foods, and played at local playgrounds. The project included Yelp reviews, map creations, brochures, photographs, pie charts, post cards, budget sheets, and the best of all a bunch of smiling children.
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It's Symmetric...Boogie Woogie Woogie
Using two inch by two inch squares of construction paper, we learned about symmetry by making patchwork. We put all of our symmetrical pieces together and created a larger yet symmetrical quilt.
Hat Fashion Show: 4th and 5th Grades Present: "Keeping Up With The TRCS Hats!
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Together both the fourth grade and fifth grade classes participated in a Hat Fashion Show. Students invented a hat that makes their “life easier.” Each hat incorporated a student’s identity because it addressed a need that they have (specific to their needs, wants, and interests). They built the hat at home using resources available to them. In school, students completed other components of the project, including: writing a persuasive letter to a potential seller, determining the selling point of the hat in order to receive desired profit, creating advertisements, and collected hat size data.
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60K Bike Race
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The Great Debate
During Literacy, the class read articles about animals in aquariums, zoos, and Sea World, researching both the pros and cons of each situation. The students learned how to stop, think, and respond to a text, develop opinions, and support arguments. Students broke off into small groups to organize arguments to debate.
Lenape Trading Expedition
Students divided into four groups: Fisherman, Hunters, Farmers, Pottery Makers. Using there colored items and wampum, they moved from tribe to tribe to gather items that will help their tribe survive in the winter.
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The Field Trip: Dividing Subway Sandwiches
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To And Fro Books
A Japanese- inspired accordion book that is also known as the paper slinky. Made for wonderful published books!
Wampum
The Lenape people used Wampum as currency. Frequently, the Lenape traded with other tribes in order to have the supplies they needed to survive. Wampum is made out of shells and beaded together as jewelry or a belt. Trading with wampum resembled good fortune and a fair trade. In class, we made Wampum using cereal, beads, and pasta. This wampum will be used during our trading expedition simulation.
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Lenape For Sale Poster
Using the internet, we researched Wigwams- Homes that the Lenape lived in. Partnerships gathered facts and created "For Sale Posters for the Wigwams. I must say, posters came out great.
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Nonfiction Page
In Literacy, we studied nonfiction. We learned that when we read nonfiction we are always learning new facts. We analyzed published nonfiction pages and noticed that many pages have distinguished elements: Headings, Subheadings, Captions, Diagrams, Bold Print, and much more. We decided to make our own nonfiction pages, using the information we learned about Lenape Clothing in Social Studies. We researched facts from the internet, used those facts, and Voila- a nonfiction page.
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Instagram Reflections
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To end the first marking period, fourth graders created a picture that expressed their opinion about school, reflecting on what they learned, loved, found challenging, or maybe disliked. They learned that writing is not the only way to reflect, but much like artists they can use pictures, drawings, photographs etc. to express feelings and opinions. The photos included a creative caption and were posted to class Instagram page.
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Personal Narrative Writing
For our first big writing unit, the students wrote Personal Narratives. Students learned that they could generate ideas by listing people, places, and objects, that are important to them. We also brainstormed ideas by listing strong feelings. Once we came up with the idea we sketched and labeled our stories and began writing drafts in our notebooks. Students chose one idea in which they wanted to revise. As a class, we analyzed mentor texts: Roller Coaster, Bibbity Bob Barbershop, Canoe Days, Big Mamas, and Shortcut to determine what the authors did that we can mimic in our writing. The revising process was definitely tricky. We revised leads, learned about story arcs, revised transition words, turned telling statements into showing statements, and revised our endings. Students loved using the computers to write and we even had mini lessons on Microsoft Words. As a celebration, we joined the second grade publishing party.
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If You Give A Mouse A Cookie
For our first writing project of the year, the students created versions of Laura's Numeroff's "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie." We touched upon the writing process: drafting, revising, editing and publishing. Students had the opportunity to be both clever and creative. Each student, made his or her story into a sewed hardcover book. This proved to be the perfect beginning to fourth grade writing.
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Planning a Birthday Party
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With a $120 budget and only being able to invite four friends, we had to plan our birthday parties. Thinking about the theme, invitations, snacks, games, cake, we planned our birthday parties step by step. Using the internet and local supermarket advertisements, we made a shopping list, priced out items and calculated our expenses so that we would stay on budget. Some of us learned that we could't get everything we wanted. |
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Happy Bubble Collage
We thought of five things that make us happy. Thinking about our families, friends, foods, travel, holidays, games, and more we made our lists. Then, we collected words, photos, and drawings that represented our happiness. Using the photos, drawings, magazine pictures, words, stickers, tickets, and wrappers from a favorite candy bar we made "HAPPY BUBBLE COLLAGES." We had fun sharing our masterpieces with our classmates. They allowed us to learn more about our friends, build class community, and understand who we are and what we love.
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ZOOMEach student was given an illustration from the picture book ZOOM by Istvan Banyai. Within each picture is another picture. Together the students used the clues given in each photograph to put the wordless story in order from beginning to end.
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