Spring Break!

 Hello again!  We had a short, but busy, week here in Room 11!  In ELA this week we finished up reading Save Me a Seat together as a class.  We really enjoyed the funny ending to this awesome novel!  After finishing the book, we discussed different themes of this book and worked on providing evidence for those themes with details from throughout the story.  We also discussed character change and how the author showed these changes slowly throughout the book.  Then, students chose one of the main characters (Joe, Ravi or Dillon) and started to write a diary entry from the perspective of that character.  I love seeing how the kiddos get into the minds of the characters they have learned so much about as we read this book.

In Social Studies this week students completed a webquest where they learned more about what life was like in New Netherland, including what jobs people did, what school was like and what their homes were like.  We also learned about how New Netherland became New York.  We read about how the King of England gave his brother, the Duke of York, all the land between the Connecticut and Delaware Rivers, which included New Netherland.  We also read about how the Dutch colonists decided to surrender to him, but were allowed to stay in what was now called New York.  We learned about the lasting influence the Dutch had on our state and saw lots of examples including Tulip Fest!  Students then worked to identify cause and effect relationships from what we read.

We ended the week by competing in the Peep Mobile House Challenge!  Students worked in their houses to create a vehicle that could carry a Peep and be powered by puffs of air.  They were only able to use cardboard, straws, paper and lifesavers to make their vehicle.  They earned points for each inch that their vehicle was able to travel on 3 puffs of air.  I always love seeing the creativity and engineering skills these kiddos use during these challenges!  There are some photos from this challenge below!

I hope that everyone has a wonderful Spring Break!! As always, please feel free to reach out to me with any questions!

A few reminders:

• Our New York State ELA test is on Thursday, April 20th and Friday April 21st.  4th grade starts the test right at 9:00 so please be sure that all students are on time to school on those days.
• Thursday, April 27th is a half day for students.