Deborah and Megan’s fourth grade class went to Ellis Island on Wednesday, December 10th. We took a ferry to get there. We passed the Statue of Liberty.

We wrote a journal entry about how it might feel to see the 1st and 2nd class passengers just getting off the boat and the steerage passengers having to wait.

When we docked at Ellis Island, we walked inside and noticed the Great Hall was huge. It was cool to also see what the building looked like from the outside. There was a guide to show us around. The guide lead us to inspectors. The inspectors asked us to do stuff like pushups and jumping jacks. They gave us those tests to see if we were healthy. Then when they were done inspecting us they gave us different cards. If you had a blank card you were healthy. Max got a card that said FT which meant foot problems. Charlie got an H which meant heart disease. Andrei got L which meant lameness. Antonio got X which meant mental problems. The inspection was my favorite part of the field trip.

Then we went up a staircase to the Great Hall. There was somebody singing the national anthem and our class had to be silent. Then Governor Christie started giving a speech. We made a journal entry and listened to oral histories on an audio that we were given. The audios had oral histories and other stuff that taught you about the history of Ellis Island and immigration. The audios the teachers told us to listen to were mostly oral histories. Simón found these two audios that were really funny. Their numbers were 888 and 899. This guy called Murdy the Meerkat apparently was talking, he had an animal kind of voice. The Meerkat audios were for children.

After sitting down and writing journal entries we broke off into many little groups with the chaperones. Some kids went upstairs to the top floor and saw the bunks where the steerage passengers slept. Sadly, my group did not get to go upstairs.

When it was lunchtime we went to sit on benches. We were surrounded by this huge wall that went in a circle. It was the wall of honor. We knew that Max had a relative on the wall. We looked across the wall. We found it. It was towards the end of the wall. It said Max Taetle. To eat lunch outside felt freezing but Deborah said, “Immigrants had to immigrate in the winter even if they were cold.”

After lunch we got back on the ferry and went back to school. When we got back to
school we had free time. Then we went home.

By Pema

Enjoy!

Password: littlered!

Deborah and Megan’s Farm Movie 2014 from LREI on Vimeo.

“So you’re about hear something that will BLOW your mind. The Farm, It might sound boring (that’s what my older sister said) but it’s really great. The trip begins at the bus. It starts off kids crying, people laughing, teachers being stressed out, but then you get outside everyone, literally everyone is cheering for you from grown-ups to siblings even the principal.” –Max

“Surprises are exciting because it feels good to see new things and be wrong about what you thought it would be. I was hoping that I would get surprised I just feel better when I see new things and am surprised because it makes your life more interesting to be surprised.” –Ally

“Pigs are very playful. They like to rub their nose on you and cuddle up. The pigs bite and play all day. They love food and attention.” …
“It is very hard for farmers to get food so you should respect where your food comes from.” –Alon

“We heard Paul saying that if we finished shoveling poop we could see a calf being born!” -Antonio

“I loved doing morning chores because we get to feed all the animals. It is so fun because the animals get so excited and jump up and down when you feed them.” –Ava

“After she came out, a big bubble came out and it got bigger and bigger until it exploded, and a ton of nutrients and blood flew out of it. It was really disgusting seeing the calf coming out, but it was still cool and I recommend seeing it.” –Andrei

“I went to a farm and I spent a lot of time in the dirty, messy, gross pig pens. They were adorable, scrumptious, and super silly.” –Estelle

“Feeding the pigs was fun, but a little hard…Now I know why they say, ‘You eat like a pig.’” –Diego

“Sooner or later Lucy stood up, the baby’s hooves were touching the ground! It’s like she was doing a handstand! It was hilarious!”

“We had to walk all the way over to this shed and turn the water on. It was tiring BUT fun. When we made it there was strangely a big pile of really white sand. Sophia stood on it, held her flashlight and stood like the Statue of Liberty. I did it too.” –Maeve

“My group went to the cow barn and then we noticed some hooves were sticking out of a cow named Lucy. We all gasped and did not want to make butter we wanted to watch the calf being born.” –Mia

“Just when I was starting to get bored, the mom pushed, and the whole calf was out except the back legs and all this yellow nutrient stuff was going on the baby. Finally the whole baby was out. After that the mom started to lick all the yellow stuff off of the baby and also encouraged the baby to stand up. I also saw the after birth. First Zoe thought she was having another baby, but then Danielle said it was just the after birth.” –Clarissa

“At our school (Little Red School House) the fourth graders get to go the super awesome, incredible, exciting, cool, fun, amazing, astonishing, astounding, eye-opening, fabulous, miraculous, stunning, sublime, stupendous, surprising, wonderful, wondrous, shocking, jaring, jaw-dropping, stupefying, startling, delightful, and flabbergasting… farm trip!!!!!!” –Julia

“First, I tried the whey. It tasted like lemon juice and garbage. Yuck! Then, I tried the cheese curds. It was really crumbly and dry. But I liked it more than the whey! After we made cheese, we toured the creamery. It was freezing! We had to wear little plastic bags on our shoes to keep the creamery clean.” –Tess

“I also liked the chickens. There was one very old one and she let you hold her. All the other chickens would keep hiding under their coop.” –Zoe

“I think the reason our class went to the Farm because it helped us become a better community. It helped us be a class because we all have to make dinner for everybody else.” –Thomas

“First I walked around the playground on Daisy and it was really bumpy and really fun to be thrown around on a horse’s sillky – but – bristly – if – you – rubbed – it – the – wrong – way – fur and feel like you are going to fall off (but you don’t and it feels like a rollercoaster). Riding Daisy made me feel really cool and because I had never ridden a horse before, it felt really special to ride her. If I ever get on a horse again I won’t get freaked out because I can remember that feeling and I will remember it forever.” –Stella

“Another way to bond with friends is to eat with them. Bunks really helped us bond because we could talk to each other and we didn’t have an activity, so it was a good time to talk to each other. If something bad happened that day, they would cheer me up by making me laugh, like Diego did. Everyone also bonded with at least two animals.” –Charlie

“When we neared the barn, Luna went mad! She ran and ran. Finally, she stopped. She turned around then she ran all the way back to the barn. She stopped again. Then farmer Jamie told me, “Let go of the leash if she is going to fast!” I finally thought it was over but then she bolted she started running in circles she was going so fast. I could hear the wind whistling in my ears I was literally flying in the air my feet dragging behind me.” –Pema

“I think we went to the farm trip because we need to learn more about responsibility by waking up at 5AM to do chores, and it’s really hard for me to wake up at 5AM. Another way to learn responsibility is by taking care of yourself because your parents aren’t there…. Kids should appreciate their time as a kid by playing sports and other games.” –Simon

“When I was at the farm I changed in many ways like learning new things about animals, watching animals change and I changed in my ways. So when we were coming back on the bus I felt full of energy! Farms are the best places in the world!” –Sophia

Today we toured a dairy, made butter, picked vegetables, made soup, herded cows, led sheep, played with pigs, made cheese, ate ginger cookies, drank hot apple cider, sang songs, painted landscapes, and WATCHED THE BLOOD RED MOON RISE!

Antonio – “I really liked the pizza we had for lunch.”

Ava – “The pizza tasted so fresh because it was homemade, not made from canned foods. It’s made from real tomatoes. I really liked the celery sticks with cream cheese. After lunch, we went to the playground, and we wrote poems about objects and animals that can’t speak.”

Maeve – “Today, our group made apple cider. We had to spin this handle, and it was really hard because there were a lot of apples in there at once. Then we fed the pigs the apple scraps.”

Estelle – “My group herded cows. There was a baby born yesterday, and the farmers were trying to get the mother and the baby into one of the two barns, but because the mom had never before been in the barn, and they needed to milk her, they had to coax her inside. The cows were sad because they didn’t want to go in the new barn. They had to pick up the baby. We also made butter.”

Thomas – “I liked being with the pigs while collecting poem ideas.”

Diego – “The pigs were really funny because they were trying to find acorns by digging with their snouts, and their face was all the way under the mud.”

Alon – “I liked going on the roof of the horse stalls because we got to play in the hay. Simón and I found really comfy spots in the hay!”

Stella – “Some people had to do animal chores this morning, and the farmer shot-out milk from the utter into our mouths.”

Mia – “My favorite part from today was riding the horses. I rode a horse named Daisy, and she trotted fast, and it was really fun because I bounced a lot.”

Pema – “I rode Sierra and she was really lazy, she didn’t want to go.”

Charlie – “I think this day wasn’t the best day because it was all about poo. We had to shovel poo in the cow barn and then we had to hike up a poo trail to get the cows. I liked the pigs, they were really cute!”

Julia – “I named a pig Hermione Granger.”

Max – “I liked scooping the poop out of the barn because we got to sing some songs, like “Nugget and a Biscuit,” and “I’ve been working in the cow barn.”

Zoe – “I liked gardening a lot because I liked eating the raspberries and being able to try different types of plants and learning about them.”

Ally – “I liked making butter. We put cream in a jar, and then we shook it really hard. We passed it around, and it turned into butter.”

Simón – “I liked making the apple cider. I liked throwing the apples into the mull.”

Andrei – “I really liked writing my poem about the chickens. I liked observing them and fluffing their feathers.”

Clarissa – “I really liked making butter. After the cream turned into butter, we put the butter in a bowl with water, and we smooshed it to get the buttermilk out.”

Sophia – “I liked watching the cows in the barns.”

Tess – “I enjoyed going into the garden and eating the herbs and plants, and at the end, we got to pick raspberries, and they were amazing!! They had to drag us away from the raspberries!”

First Day Reflections!

Julia – “It was really cool and awkward to see a calf being born.”

Tess – “I had lots of fun chasing sheep.”

Alon – “The calf was gross and yucky at the same time.”

Antonio – “It looked like the mother was kind of pooping-out a baby. The legs came first, then the tongue and the face, and then the body, and it just kind of plopped down.”

Zoe – “I didn’t think that the birth of the cow itself was disgusting, but the afterbirth was kind of gross.”

Andrei – “I thought all of the baby pigs were really cute. They kept nibbling at my feet. They looked like little kids.”

Estelle – “When the calf took her first steps, the bull nudged the baby, and it was the sweetest thing ever. When the afterbirth came, it was a big bubble that grew bigger and bigger, then it popped and splattered nutrients.”

Mia – “I thought the calf was really cute after all of the nutrients had been licked-off. It was really cute when the calf kicked over the water bowl as it took its first steps.”

Stella – “I thought herding the cows was really fun. We had these giant bamboo sticks, and whenever a cow would stop, we would tap it on the back with our stick. We had to avoid a lot of manure as we walked!”

Charlie – “I liked cooking lentil soup because it was fun cutting up all the vegetables, but the onions made everyone cry! I think only a few of us actually finished cutting one.”

Diego – “When I went in the pig pen, the mama pig kept coming over to me and rubbing her snout on me. I started pretending that I was the papa pig. I clapped my hands, and they all started coming over to me.”

Pema – “When I was in the pig pen, all of the pigs were chewing my shoes because they liked my laces. It felt really weird.”

Ava – “I really liked riding a horse because I don’t ride horses very often, so I was a little bit scared, but, when I got on the horse, I felt safe. After I rode around, and my turn was over, I didn’t want to get off.”

Max – “The pigs were really cute because they were really small. We saw the mama pig breastfeeding all eighteen of the baby pigs.”

Maeve – “My favorite part of today was probably seeing the cows because they were really cute. It was really weird to be in the barn, looking at a calf that was born that morning, and to have someone come into the barn and say that another cow was giving birth! Two calves were born in one day!”

Sophia – “I really liked horseback riding and feeding the chickens. The chickens charged some people and some people kind of freaked out.”

Ally – “I liked leading the sheep back to their pen. We walked over to the pasture, and we put them on leashes, and then we led them back. The sheep were a little bit scared, and they kept trying to eat the grass on the way back.”

Clarissa – “I really enjoyed making the soup. We cut up all the ingredients. I cut up mint, peppers, and onions.”

Simón – “I liked chasing the chickens and trying to grab them. They pecked me!”

Thomas – “The cow being born was weird because the baby was all yellow when it came out.”

Last Tuesday, September 30th we went to the Statue of Liberty. First we went to take a train to go on the ferry but…… somebody stepped on my classmate’s shoe and it fell in the tracks!!!!!!!!! Then my mom asked the train driver to help. So the train driver got his flashlight and did some kind of “flashlight language” and it told the next train driver who was coming behind us to stop. So that he could get the shoe. It was pretty hectic but in the end the student got his shoe back. That was just the first 20 minutes of our trip, I have more crazy stories to tell you.

After the train, we went on a ferry to go to Liberty Island to see the Statue of Liberty. First, we went in the bottom of the Pedestal Museum where there were lots of cool facts and objects. We filled out some of our trip sheet, and took notes about some facts. For example, we saw a giant replica of the Statue of Liberty’s foot – it was extremely cool. Bartholdi, the original creator, initially planned the pedestal to be round then he saw it as a more traditional structure and then he had his final idea which is what we see now. We saw how plaster was put on the wooden lathe work which provided the general form and shape of the statue. Did you know that the Bartholdi modeled the head of the Statue of Liberty after his own mother? And did you know that the same guy who made the Eiffel Tower was a big help building the underlying structure of the Statue of Liberty? His name was Alexander-Gustave Eiffel.

After the Pedestal Museum, we walked up five BIG long flights of stairs to go almost to the top of the pedestal. That was a good workout. I felt really good. We were right under the Statue of Liberty’s torch. She’s beautiful. We filled another page of notes which was the first step for writing our Statue of Liberty poems. They turned out really nice. (They are hanging up in our classroom now.) And we enjoyed the view!!! It was scary but super fun. I loved it. Then we sketched Lady Liberty and tried on the ranger’s binoculars. The ranger said the binoculars were, “to look at girls.” But I knew that that wasn’t true so I said, “No, what do you really use them for ???” So then he gave me a serious answer and it was, “To scope out bad guys.” I saw a helicopter, it looked like it was right in front of me and I could touch it, but I couldn’t. The binoculars were big and very good for looking at distant things.

Finally our trip came to an end and we celebrated Sophia’s birthday with Lady Liberty cookies and star cookies on the ferry ride home. Thank you Sophia ; ). And thank you to all the parents who came!! I hope we can go again. And I hope this encourages you to go there.

-Estelle

A community member is someone who comforts people.

To be a community member means that you work with your community to accomplish things that you can’t accomplish on your own.

A community member is somebody who helps the team and who is nice to everyone.

Being a part of a community means you help out your neighbor if they need help.

One way to be a community member is to add on to other ideas to make better ideas.

A community member works with other people.

A community member is someone who cares about things

A community member is willing to try new things.

You can also help by talking with others who don’t get what your community is doing.

Clean up even if you didn’t make the mess.

If someone wants to join a game you’re playing don’t say no to them, let them join in.

Being a member of a community means you have to help and be a part of the group. You should give ideas.

I think a classroom is a community and a neighborhood is a community because in those places there are people who help a lot.

Communities come in all shapes and sizes.

I know that communities work together because they help their friends when they’re down.

It means a lot to be in my community. I love it.

A good member of a community will push themselves to do what they think might be hard.

A good community member will help others when they’re stuck, left out, sad, or lonely.

It also means don’t hold up the group.

You’re a community member if you think about everybody, not just yourself.

Think about how your choices will affect everyone.

Being in a community means you have friends and you have a team.

We have to help each other when people are not steady.

Brooklyn Bridge Park

September 26 was a beautiful day for art and city watching.

Tess: We went on a field trip today. We went to Brooklyn. We walked a lot. We went to see these sculptures that were a part of the Statue of Liberty. We sketched. We listened to the sounds around us. We sketched what was around us including the sculpture.

Ava: We went to the park. We saw a sculpture. Then we went to a grass park and we played around in the grass. Some people played tag and some people sat and talked and some people did gymnastics.

Alon: “We had fun all.”

Simon: “The sleeve had poles. It was really bumpy like an actual sleeve.”

Charlie: “You could feel the grooves in the indented lines of the sleeve.”

Diego: “There were a lot of beams inside. On the outside you saw two but if you looked inside the sleeve, you saw lots of beams. The beams were holding it together so it wouldn’t cave in.”

Clarissa: “All of the shadows were all going in one direction.”

Diego: “We found a lot of giant acorns – they looked like grapes.”

Ally: “The sleeve was a little ragged.It was light and dark.”

Zoe: “After we sketched we got to play in this grassy field which was very fun. I went crazy doing cartwheels.”

Tess: We played tag and no one caught me.

Pema: “On the sleeve it was pointy and then it went down and then it went straight.”

Andrei: “The sun shined onto the copper sleeve making a shadowy figure behind it.”

Estelle: ”There were parts the Statue of Liberty. This artist made a replica of parts of the Statue of Liberty. They weren’t parts taken off of the Statue of Liberty. We saw a dead run-over rat.”

Mia: “They were as big as the stature. They were twice as tall as us and they were gigantic.”

Julia: “There was a bird named Foodini on the piling where we were having snack. He ate saltines.”

Maeve: “On the way back we all had fun. It was a really really long walk. It was a really steep hill that we all had to walk up and most of us were annoyed by that. Finally, we got on the subway and we sat for a while. We went on the street and passed the dead rat and finally we made it into our classroom. We all had a fun today.”