Wen’s Visit to the Fourth Grade

An Immigrant Today

by Luc

LREI NY- On 2/8/17 the LREI fourth grade had a visitor. Her name is Wen. She is an immigrant from a village in China. Her village is called Xiapu. The fourth grade was very interested to hear her story. She said a lot of interesting things. This is is her story:

Wen came to NY in 1985 from Xiapu when she was 12 years old. The village she came from only had about 50 people. They were all friends. It was about the size of Sixth Avenue and Bleecker Street. You could tell what village someone lived in by their last name. The village had no heat or electricity. The teachers knew how cold the kids were so they had recess after every class so they would run around and get warm. They would play a game where they stood in a line and tried to push each other out of the line.

That kept them warm because they were pushing against each other. The windows had no glass. Instead they used paper! The village would glue the paper to their windows with rice. They had rice for every meal. It may sound bad but they played with each other a lot. They would play hacky sacks and they played ping pong. They would take off their doors and use them as ping pong tables! Sometimes they went to a plastic factory near their village and played with rubber bands.

When Wen got to NYC she was shocked. She had never seen anyone who was not Chinese.

It was crazy for her. Wen’s mom and her worked at a sweatshop as seamstresses. Wen’s whole family worked there. She thought it was fun. “Looking back it wasn’t so safe.” Wen said. “The fire escapes were blocked, and there was no elevator. It was still better conditions than where I was from.” Wen said her boss was nice but had a temper. “She was stressed because of all the work,” said Wen. Wen s first American meal was chicken pot pie and she loved it.

Now Wen has her own clothing company. In the sweatshop she worked as she learned about clothes and she said that was a great experience for her. Now Wen lives better than she did before, in NYC USA.

The Union Square Post-it Wall

img_4351

The Wall Against The Wall

By Jasiri Young

NEW YORK NY- On Thursday, December 15, Dan and Tara’s fourth grade class went to Union Square. They saw the post-it protest against Trump. They were going there for a Social Studies Field Trip. The wall is full of post-its that had people’s thoughts on the election on them. They made them because There were many post-its that said “We’re all in this together!” Also, some had swear words.

Many were against Trump, while some were for Trump. They were very inspiring and hopeful. A witness asked a chaperone on the field trip, “What are they doing? It is very interesting.” and then the chaperone said, “These are fourth graders taking notes on this wall.” and then the witness started crying. She was so moved by it and she cried until she couldn’t talk anymore and then she left. After that, some fourth graders asked her about her thoughts on the wall and she said, “Well, it’s awesome! And, this gives a message of hope to world, and it’s just great.”

There were many post-its. They were mostly saying either don’t give up! Or we’re all in this together! Some weren’t even really related to the election. One said, stop wearing fur! Don’t kill animals! Many said, black lives matter! Or Global Warming exists Trump! This man named Matthew Chavez created this idea to have a wall of post-its called “post-it protest.” Then, tons of people started putting post-its on the wall and it got started. Matthew is trying to show Trump what people think.

img_4349

You Post-it I See-it

By Milla van Gastel

Manhattan-The fourth graders went to see the walls of post-its at Union Square on 12/15/16. There were a lot of post-its, they were looking at them and taking part. They even got to put their own post-its on the wall. A women started tearing up and had to leave because she was so moved!

They went to the post-it wall because they wanted to see what people are doing right now and what they are saying. They contributed to the wall by putting their ideas and thoughts down. A lot of the post-its were about the election and the next few years. They took notes and read the post-its also. They also were interviewing people that were looking at the post-its, one person said, “ I think this is really cool, people are saying nice encouraging things to help each other and make each other feel safe.

The wall of post-its was a very good learning experience for them and it was fun to see everyone thoughts, comments, and ideas right now. There was one line of post-its that said something interesting: HATE ONLY BREEDS MORE HATE, SPREAD LOVE. And some fourth graders thought that was true and that we need to do that too. And it was really amazing to go see the wall!    

img_4355 img_4360 img_4364

Chase wrote about the Constitution. 

The preamble of the Constitution was to describe a perfect constitution and what America should look like and be like. The constitution wanted a perfect America to convince the U.S but guess what the constitution got out of it. A bunch of filthy cities.

You might know what the Statue of Liberty is. Well look at liberty. What does liberty mean? It means freedom. The founding fathers of the constitution wanted to liberate all people who didn’t like the king come to America and live in a free country. Think about the last part of the national anthem. It’s “home of the free and land of the brave”, well something like that.

I haven’t seen a lot of fairness around the country. The constitution wanted fairness. Some people are trying to be fair but some people are not. I’m not talking about sports and other things that don’t have to do with the law. I’m talking about wealth and being able to afford food. And guess what? I still don’t see people being treated fairly.

Peace is basically America. And you know why? We have such a great army, navy and military. That’s why other countries barely attack America. That’s what the constitution got.

The constitution wanted a good future. 2016 is what the constitution was looking forward to but not exactly. Look at America. What do you think about when you see people pollute? Is this what the founding fathers of the constitution wanted? No! Somebody once told me global warming was the most important issue for him. Do you know why he said that? He said that because the world depends on it.

Please help make the world a better place. 

Election Day

2016 Lower School Mock Election from LREI on Vimeo.

Thank you Celeste for doing the layout on the newspaper. We could not have published this first edition of the 2016/17 LREI News without her help. Next time, the students will be part of the layout process. Our fingers are crossed!

Click on image to enlarge.

1stnewspaperv3 1stnewspaperv3-2 1stnewspaperv3-3 1stnewspaperv3-4

Mia’s Election Day iMovie

Election Day from LREI on Vimeo.

Imogen’s iMovie slideshow.

Election Day from LREI on Vimeo.

 

Second Grade Article Writing

By Imogen

Since we are studying newspaper articles, we practiced writing them. The fourth grade went to Tasha’s and Bill’s classrooms to see what they were doing.  We could then write newspaper articles about what we observed.

We split into groups of four or five, and some groups went to Tasha’s and some groups went Bill’s classrooms to write. We watched the second graders in their classroom, while they were reading and doing math. Some fourth graders watched the students in Bill’s class get ready for the canned food drive.

We took notes about what the second graders were doing so we could could write about it for homework. We all wrote a news article. Some of us wrote it by hand in our writing journals, while others wrote it on the computer.

In the articles we wrote for homework, we had to include the 5 w’s and 1 h (who, what, when, where, why, and how). We also had to include quotes, and at least 3 paragraphs.

We stood at the back of the second grade classroom to watch. We were like flies on the wall. We tried to cause as little disruption as possible. A couple of fourth graders were able to  ask questions to the second grade.

Our First Week of Journalism

3_little_pigs__wolfLast week, the Fourth Grade began to learn how to write newspaper articles. The students were able to use their Google Drive accounts for the first time to write articles about a story we all know! Our class wrote a little bit about the experience so far.

Imogen said…

In fourth grade have been writing news articles. Before this in journalism we learned about the five w’s and one h:  who, what, when, where, why and how. Charissa told us that all of the answers to these questions will be in the first paragraph. We also learned that almost all news articles are like an inverted pyramid. The first is the lead of the topic then the most important details then the less important details, then the least important details , then the closing of the article.
After these became familiar we started reading articles and finding the 5 w’s and 1 h. One of the articles we read was the three little pigs. This was the article we had to make. We had to use the 5 w’s and 1 h. We also had to use the same story and the same ending. It felt like we were real reporters! It was easy and fun because this story is familiar. We could be creative and choose the names and the setting. We changed the story a little  to make it our own, this was my favorite part. It was like we were going to put these articles in the news paper. It was our first project on our Google Drives, it was also the first article that we EVER made. We are excited to make more articles.

Gray said…

My favorite part of journalism is writing the Three Little Pigs because I love tech. And that I had to make up the story as I went and making the story funny and giving characters personalities. I was just having fun in general as I was going and hanging out with my friends doing it. I liked helping others doing the blog and the story. And learning more about the computer as I go. And that I can practice touch typing and get a lot faster. And getting to make up my own version of the story I personally really enjoy.
We’ve been doing this for about two or three weeks. We’ve been doing this because it is faster than having to hand write it and because we are going to be journalists this year and writing about the Three Little Pigs as if it was a real newspaper.

Cecilia said …

4th graders are learning about the 5w’s and an H. Because knowing what’s going on in the lower school is important information, Dan and Tara’s 4th grade have taken on the challenge of writing articles for the whole lower school explaining the curriculum to whoever stops by to reads the articles in the hallway.

First we read some articles about events like the assassination of president Abraham Lincoln or the warning of a global pork shortage. DT4’s class then learned about the lede in an article and how to start with the breaking news to grab attention and then slowly work your  way to add the smaller details like an inverted pyramid

Then of course we kept talking about the 5 w’s and an H. WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE ,WHY, AND HOW.We usually have these 6 in the first paragraph but sometimes just 4.

That’s it for now and please read the articles when you get the chance.           

Milla said…

We have been working on our first article the Three Little Pigs, we’ve been doing it in our Google Drive accounts. We started on October 13 and continued the next day. We the 4th grade are doing this because we are doing journalism and this is just the beginning of journalism. My favorite part of journalism so far is getting to do in our Google Drive accounts and getting to type it on the computer!! I am so excited to keep going in journalism.

Mia said…

In 4th grade one of the things we have been learning is journalism. We are writing a recreation  of the story the Three Little Pigs and we have been working hard on it. In our stories we had to keep all of qualities of the original story, but just make it in a different way. What I love most about journalism is getting to write and to make or recreate a new story . I have loved journalism so far  and can’t wait to learn more in  journalism.

Luca said…

When we started the Three Little Pigs I thought it was going to be easy, but I was wrong. It was really fun. My favorite part of journalism is that now that we are older we can use computers so our writing goes faster. The class has been reporting and writing stories about the Three Little Pigs. We have been using the 5 W’s and 1 H. They are who, what, where, when, why, and how. We have been using Google Drive for this work for the past week. We have been using desktops or Chrome Books.

Wyeth said…

My favorite part of journalism is  writing the Three Little Pigs because I get to pretend that I’m writing the newspaper about the famous story about the Three Little Pigs… well 2 little pigs that get eaten by this big wolf and one little pig who is smart enough to build his house of brick. We have been doing this for two or three days. We have been doing this because my reading teacher Charissa is teaching us to write efficiently and write newspaper articles.

*********

We look forward to sharing more of our journalism adventures as the year goes on!