Throughout the month of December our 4th graders work on a research project where they research different countries and how they celebrate Christmas. Towards the end of the writing process, the students make suitcases that represent the different information they found about their country’s holiday. This was a great way to tie in social studies with writing. Some of the most important things 4th graders learn are writing multiple paragraphs, speaking to an audience and new math skills. Some of these new math skills are long division, adding and subtracting fractions and finding degrees in a circle.
The third quarter project for 4th grade will also connect reading & writing with social studies in a creative activity that will strengthen their research, writing, and speaking skills. It is called a “Wax Museum”. The students will pose as if made from wax until they are prompted by having another person press their "button". At that point, they will "come alive” and say the information that they have researched and recorded about their particular character. The words that they say should sound as if that historical person is speaking. Before they can become their wax person, they will need to conduct research on their person.
-Story and photos submitted by Elizabeth Etrheim
