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Hi,
Maybe you were wondering why everyone was bringing food to school.
Our names are Estelle, Maeve and Tess. This week we had a homesick party. We each brought in food from our immigrant persona’s country. In Deborah and Megan’s 4th grade we are studying immigrants. Immigrants were from Ireland, Scotland, Greece, Italy, Russia, Sweden, or France. Each Immigrant had a special food from their own home country. The food may not taste delicious to us, but it was special to the immigrant. Remember your yuck could be your immigrant’s yum [Some people brought in sweet dishes. Some people brought in savory ones. For example, Mia brought in a sweet dish called a cannoli. Andrei brought in pasta which is not sweet. We all got to try a little bit of each person’s dish (and some of us got seconds). We all got milk because that’s what immigrants first drank when they came through Ellis Island. We drank it In America also. We did this project because we wanted a chance to really get to know what they used to eat. We all loved to try different food from different countries. It was interesting to see how immigrants ate. When we made our food, we really thought about how they ate. Maeve and I (Tess) made the same thing. It was called poverty cake.

When we first got into the room we talked in a circle about what our immigrant name was, what our food was and why it was important. I (Estelle) made “Prosciutto e melone.” This is an Italian dish. My immigrant persona brought it because, only Italians made this dish I remember Stella saying “My name is Sibina Moore. I am from Ireland, I made soda bread. It is important to me because it is my grandmother’s recipe when she passed through Ellis Island, she adopted a baby.” Everyone wanted to actually be their immigrant so they could always have this feast. Also everybody shared their immigrant persona’s dishes, and everyone else had different stories. Some kids made healthy foods like Sophia’s scottish pie. Lots of people made pastries like Thomas’s crepes, Mia’s cannolis, and Pema’s broken biscuit chocolate bar with shortbread. Others made in between foods like Charlie and Andrei’s spaghetti, Stella’s Irish Soda bread and Ally’s meatballs. These foods you would not find so often. You would probably find them in a country of origin.

Some 4th grader’s quoted:

“The homesick party had a lot of food representing a lot of countries.”-Max

“I liked teaching people to put lemon juice in my crepes.” -Thomas

“Tasting the food was so good.”-Ally

“I tried so many new foods!”-Julia

“ I liked how everybody’s dish was different”-Charlie

“I found out that I really like prosciutto and melon.”-Sophia

“I loved all the different sweet, salty, and savory food.”-Stella

“I thought it was really cool that we had different foods from all over the world in our classroom”

“It was amazing seeing how immigrants ate”-Tess

Everybody loved everybody’s dish. There was no dish that was not liked by anybody. Everybody complimented and appreciated everybody’s hard work. In fact nobody discouraged anybody about their foods even if they did not like it they would hold it in for the sake of the person who made it’s feelings.

Nobody ate lunch after this feast!
We loved all the dishes that we had never tried. We also loved the ones that we did try! Some of them, we still eat today! like:
Estelle’s Prosciutto e melone, Thomas’s crepes and Andrei and Charlie made some pasta with tomato sauce. Each food was unique in it’s own way. Most of them were different and new we have never had a better time taste testing.

“It kind of felt like I was traveling all over the world.” -Clarissa

By Maeve, Tess, and Estelle

Pinocchio wants to be a real boy. How do you know that you’re real? What does it feel like to be real?

Maeve: “When you are real you can experience more feelings. Some of those feelings are: happy, sad, frustrated, scared, excited, and many more. You can feel bad and sad but being real is like a scale, bad and good measure perfectly. I know I am real because I experience all of these things.”

Max: “Maybe Pinocchio is a real boy and all of us are not real…Well, if you’re a human you might not be real but if you’re human you can have emotions, you are vulnerable to sharp things and you can walk and talk.”

Mia: “You know you are real if you have emotions.”

Ava: “I think that when you are real your heart is beating you have many moods, you’re not made out of wood, you can eat, you can talk.”

Thomas: “It feels good to be real. It feels good because you have senses that work. I feel like I’m real when I pull a planeswalker and the first idea that pops into my head is NEW IDEA.”

Sophia: “I am real because I do not have a nose that grows every time I tell a lie. I have skin and bones and I am not made out of wood. I am a human being. I like myself. I can be who I want, when I want.”

Ally: “I don’t know if I am real. I think I am real. I am real because I’m alive so is Pinocchio but he has a long nose that grows when he lies and our nose doesn’t do anything when we lie.”

Zoe: “ You can move. You can breathe and you have blood. You also have bones, skin and a heart. You also have a brain. It feels cool to be real. If you are real you don’t really think about what it feels when you are real. To be honest I don’t even know if I’m real.”

Andrei: “Something that makes me feel real is when I tap. Tapping makes me feel like I can do whatever I want.”

Charlie: “I know I am real because I am free to do what I want to do always. It feels like I am free. One time I feel most free is when I swish a three pointer and it also give me a lot of confidence.”

Pema: “A real boy is a living human. Pinocchio is kind of a real boy and kind of not. He is a boy because he is living and can do some things that boys do. I think when he wishes that he was a boy he actually means that he wishes that he could tell a lie. I know I am real because I am made not out of any materials. When you are real it is not that easy. You have to deal with real things. The difference between us and Pinocchio is he is carved and we are not. He cannot tell a lie, we can.”

Clarissa: It feels alive and exciting. It feels plain and ordinary to be fake. When you’re fake you feel insecure…When you’re real you feel secure in this world and you don’t feel like you are lying. When you’re fake you feel like you’re lying to people who think you are real.”

A note for students whose ideas are not included in this post, send me your thoughts on the subject and I will update the post.