In math the fourth grade is learning about geometry. One of the things that helps us is the geoboards. When we use geoboards we have to find out the area of shapes. We find the area of shapes by using square units. We are not only using geoboards, we’re using symmetry. Kids have to find out the area of a shape by taking different triangles and putting them together to see if they add up to a full square. We’re decomposing shapes in order to find out how many squares are in their area. We are also learning about angles like the acute angle, the right angle, and the obtuse angle. A trick to find out how to make an acute, obtuse, or right angle is to point at yourself and say “I’m cute” for an acute angle , to point at your friend and say “You’re obtuse”, and to point at the ceiling for a right angle.

Two Friday,’s ago Zach and Rufus Cappadocia played cello in Deborah and Jake’s classroom. They sounded really good. “How did you feel when you played in front of the class?” I asked Zach. “ I felt fine, I didn’t really feel any pressure.” answered Zach. “I thought it was really cool that Zach can pluck the strings without missing them.” said Freddie Fine.

Zach and Rufus played a melody that they made up. Rufus said that he learned most of his music from Europe. Rufus said “ music is like a map of the world.” I didn’t really get what that meant but it’s still an interesting quote. I think it meant that music takes you to a lot of different places. So next time something like this happens if you’re really quiet maybe you can hear Zach and Rufus playing cello.

In news papers in 4th grade they made news articles about the new sand in the 4s and the second grade food drive. A couple weeks later in tech, Celest, the tech teacher, introduced Photoshop and she made the kids a news  template. They copied their news into the template and made it look exactly like a newspaper.

Next week we are going to start making the yearbook. The reason we are starting the yearbook is because it takes forever to make the whole yearbook. I hope you enjoy the yearbook.

Thanks to Dan for this awesome video about our factory work simulation!

On Tuesday, our class had very interesting visitor. Javier, a Spanish born actor and dancer, shared his unique immigration story with the students. Below are some examples of their excellent newspaper article about Javier.

Javier Galito Cava
By Colette Leong

     Javier grew up in Barcelona in Spain. Most immigrants assumed that they had to come to America but Javier was an  immigrant that sort of had a reason to come to New York because it was not really a choice. Javier made a deal when he was still a teenager and he was a ballet dancer, so Javier went with the people who asked him to dance with them in America. Javier said okay because his brother was already dancing with the group, Javier got asked to join .Javier said “It’s not bad to have an accent.”

     Javier was only a teenager when he went to America.When he was in America he got taken down by some big bully’s because he is gay. The bullies thought he was dead but he was close to dying. When he went to the hospital they said he was not dead but they could fix that and turn him back to life. Javier was only dead for 3 to 4 minutes! When he woke up he was like a baby, a big baby. He still needed diapers and the people at the hospital helped him act like an adult. He also had to be trained how to walk and talk. He could not talk when he woke up from his death. Javier has a big family, Josep Lluis 55 year old brother, Elena and Rosa (twins) 53, Antonio 53, Carlos 49, Amador 47 and, Javier 44. Javier’s parents are named Teodoro 84 and Carmen 81. Javier was born on september 16th 1970 and was re-born on February 24th 1995 when he was only 24 and died at 1:30 am!

Javier luckily is alive now and has a great life. he got married to his husband after he died and right now he is still married to his husband. He lives in New York with his husband and is very happy right now.

There Is a Lot to Know About This Immigrant
By Meadow Magee

     Javier Galito-cava is an immigrant from Barcelona, Spain who was the victim of a life-threatening hate crime in America when he was 24 years old. The youngest of seven, Javier moved to America because he wanted to do ballet in San Francisco.

In February of 1995, Javier was brutally attacked by three young thugs because he was gay. The attack was so violent and so severe that Javier suffered a traumatic brain injury and was in a coma for a month and actually died twice. That is, his heart stopped twice and he had to be revived. When he woke up from his coma, his memory was gone. The loss was so severe that he had to wear a diaper and he had to learn to talk again. And he couldn’t even remember who his family was. Fortunately, he was cared for by his brother Antonio and Antonio’s wife.

Javier was born on September 16^th, 1970. Josep (55), twins Elena and Rosa (53), Antonio (51), Carlos (49), Dmador (47) are his older siblings. His parents are Teodoro (84) and Carmen (81).

Javier is now 44 years old, living in New York City, and working as an actor. He knows French and likes to eat snails! Despite the fact that he has been living in America now for 20 years, Javier still has a hint of his Spanish accent when he speaks, which has sometimes caused him trouble when people assume that he doesn’t know a lot about America and would treat him differently than he wanted to be treated. “People make assumptions, and I know that sometimes I do, but it’s not right to make assumptions.”

Javier is now happily married to a man named Daniel. There’s more than meets the eye to people on the street. Maybe that stranger has an interesting story too!