iSymbols (US)

I was emptying out my camera and realized that I never posted a project that my students completed at the end of school.  We researched US symbols and landmarks and created ipads.  The kids loved making these and they came out awesome!!!  I made a pocket on the back for the facts.

I did not create these sheets and can't find where I got them from.  It was a fre download from some great teacher.  If it is yours, please let me know so I can give you credit.

Click for download

I bought these cards from Really Good Stuff but they no longer are available from them.  I did find them on Edupress.  There are 30 cards with facts and comprehension questions.  I ordered 2 sets for my class.  They were perfect for my fourth graders.

American Symbols Reading Comprehension Social Studies Cards EP3547

Postcards from Ellis Island

My new Grade 4 Common Core ELA unit is about the stories of "Immigration."  My kids love it!!!  We have been reading many fictional and non-fictional books.  We even took a virtual tour of Ellis Island with Scholastic.

One of the activities that they loved were the Postcards.  We read the book "At Ellis Island: A History in Many Voices."  The book has so much going on...it takes 2-3 readings to do it justice.  We read it the first time for Sera's story (a fictional character).  The second reading we read and discussed the immigrants quotes and the captions.  There are many great photos and illustrations on every page.

The next thing I did was copy a page from "I Was Dreaming to Come to America" for every student, along with the short biographical page in the back.  I had them read the pages and write a postcard from the point of view of their immigrant.  We discussed that their postcard would be based on facts but will include some realistic-fiction details.

Here are some of their postcards:

Here are the Postcards I Made for My Display:

For information regarding US immigration please visit:

U.S. Naturalization and Immigration

US Regions and Tall Tale Characters

We have been very busy in fourth grade!  I am finally adjusting to our new curriculum and the Common Core.  It was hard letting go of our programs and transitioning into trade books.

We are working on the Regions of the US and Tall Tales.  I am really enjoying learning about tall tales and the integration into the regions.  Here is the list of characters that we are using:

• Northeast- Old Stormalong
• Southeast- John Henry
• Midwest- Paul Bunyan
• Southwest- Pecos Bill and Sluefoot Sue
• West- Febold Feboldson

We are using Mary Pope Osborne's anthology of tall tales, Lynne Peppas' regions of the United States and My America Poetry Anthology by Lee Bennett Hopkins.  I also have printable short stories and reader's theater by Scholastic.  We have been comparing and contrasting the different versions of tall tales.  I spend two weeks covering prose(fiction and nonfiction), drama and poetry of each region.  We are creating scrapbooks like last year that include dialect speech bubbles of the tall tale character from that region along with the scrapbook pages from Jill Russ on TPT, here is her blog with great resources (power points).

I just purchased the book below which fits in perfectly!  It is an abc book of idioms and proverbial phrases with a glossary that gives you the meanings and US origin.  The author's note refers to the development of these phrases due to tall tales and exaggerations.  It is one of my new fourth grade standards and I love how it fits into the tall tales!

I have added the tall tale characters to my post card bulletin board that continues to grow.  I divided my map into the five regions with a black sharpie and have marked the post cards with colored yarn.

Here are a few photos of my scrapbooks from my last year from an old post that you might want to check out for some other ideas.

  

 

I am planning a great culminating activity with my neighbor's class...can't wait to share!!!!

State Floats

Looking for a fun way to culminate your Social Studies Unit on the States?  Have the children create state floats...next year I plan on combining this project with our Electricity Unit and have them light up.  The kids can parade them around the school.  We made these the last week of school and just shared with the class next door.  The kids had a blast with this project.