Plymouth Journals: Landing in the New World

On November 11, 1620, the Mayflower landed in the New World. In our journals, we wrote about the landing from point of view of Saints, Strangers and the Wampanaog. Take a peek into the start of some of our journal entries!

Personal Essay Writing Celebration: Take Four

Here's a link to information about our Personal Essay Writing Celebration! Enjoy our last video where we share some of the comments we received!

Personal Essay Writing Celebration: Take Three

Here's a link to information about our Personal Essay Writing Celebration! Enjoy another video where we share some of the comments we received. 

Personal Essay Writing Celebration: Take Two

Here's a link to information about our Personal Essay Writing Celebration! Enjoy another video where we share some of the comments we received.

Personal Essay Writing Celebration

We celebrated our accomplishments during our personal essay unit as part of a writing celebration last Tuesday! We enthusiastically read and commented on our essays. Our essays included strong thesis statements, and we used varied types of evidence to support our thesis statements. We concluded our celebration by meeting to share some of the comments our classmates left for us. Enjoy our short video where we share some of the comments we received!

Plymouth Perspectives: A Teenage Boy

To learn more about our Plymouth study, click here! Here's a journal entry from the perspective of a teenager traveling on the Mayflower!

Plymouth Perspectives: An Adult Male

To learn more about our Plymouth study, click here! Here's a journal entry from the perspective on an adult male, one of the first travelers to depart the boat and explore the New World! 

Plymouth Perspectives: A Child

To learn more about our Plymouth study, click here! Here's a journal entry from the perspective of a child traveling on the Mayflower!

Plymouth Perspectives: The Wampanoag

To learn more about our Plymouth study, click here! Here's a journal entry from a member of the Wampanoag tribe!

Plymouth Perspectives: A Teenage Boy

As part of our American Colonization study, each student in the class has assumed the role of a real traveler on the Mayflower or a real member of the Wampanoag tribe.  Each student has a unique role on the journey. Some are men, and some are women. Some are adults, and some are children. Some are Saints, and some are Strangers. Some travel alone, and some travel with their families. Because each student has a different role, the diary entries they write about their experiences end up being quite different. We have several videos to share of us reading entries written from our unique perspective.

Enjoy this video from the perspective of a teenage male Stranger traveling on the Mayflower with his family!

Books to Costa Rica!

Here is a picture of the school we donated books to in Costa Rica. Last week, Yana stopped by our classroom to bring us thank-you notes from the students and to share stories from her travels. Of particular interest was the fact that there was no garbage service in the town, only recycling. That meant that residents had to be creative about what they did with their waste! 

If you missed it, here's our earlier entry about the books we donated!

The Memory Bank Book Review (by Dylan)

The Memory Bank is a great book for big dreamers. One reason is because the characters love to dream. For an example, one of the reasons Hope loves to dream is because her dreams lead her to her missing sister Honey. Another reason is because it takes place in a Memory Bank where dreams are stored. The last reason is because it shows pictures of Hope's dreams. As you can see, all dreamers should read The Memory Bank!

Spaceheadz Book Review (by Bria)

Spaceheadz is a must-read book in fourth grade. For example, it's something that you would get hooked on. One reason this book got me hooked is that Michael K. does stuff that you think he might not even do. Another reason is that the characters are different from the characters in other books. One reason I think this book has different characters than other books is that they think really differently than other books and have different personalities. Last but not least is that you can learn a few things in the whole book and really in the end. In Spaceheadz, I learned that people are not always what they seem. As you can see Spaceheadz is a good book for everybody, and I mean everybody. So I hope you read this because I love it and it was one of the greatest books that I read of all time!

Reading Partnership Celebration!

Today, we presented our award-show style speeches to thank our partners for all the support they have given us during our November Reading Partnership Unit! We learned so many things from working with our partners over the past month! Here are a few of our thank-you videos.

Are you and your partner planning to continue reading together? What is your plan for continuing your partnership? 

Official CD Release: 12/2/2010

After much anticipation, our CD of podcasts was officially released today! Enjoy listening to the tracks on your CD! Post comments here letting the writers know what you enjoyed about their podcast!

Also, enjoy a short video we filmed dancing once we had all our CDs!