Viewing: January, 2016
January 28, 2016
Recreating the Train: Number the Stars
Monday’s lesson focused primarily on dramatic terms and activities to help the kids to get prepared for the rest of the week. On Tuesday, the learned more about the character of Ellen Rosen, a young Jewish girl living in Copenhagen, whose life has changed because of the Nazi presence. The kids learned a bit about what was happening during the Holocaust, and particularly how it affected Ellen’s relationship with her non-Jewish friend, Annemarie. These programs tend to progress through key parts of the book, so Wednesday’s activity focused on a section that took place later on in the novel, where Ellen’s family learned that they must leave in order to avoid being captured by the Nazi soldiers. The kids learned that Annemarie’s family willingly accepted Ellen to stay with them, in hopes of protecting her, while Ellen’s parents sought protection in some other way (that we don’t yet know about). As they had in previous days, the kids participated in some dramatic activities to act out some of the conversations and situations that the young girls found themselves in.
Today’s activities were the most dramatic and revealing. This afternoon, the kids were invited to role-play what it would be like for them, playing the role of Ellen’s parents, to say goodbye to their daughter who was staying with another family for her own protection. This was a very dramatic activity for the kids, as they had to explain to Aurelia, who was playing the role of Ellen, their daughter, why they could not stay with her, and why it was not safe for her to come with them. They did a wonderful job thinking about what the parents would actually say to their daughter in that situation, and they showed their understanding of what they had been taught on previous days.
The final activity from today, however, was the most emotional, and, I think, eye-opening for the kids. By moving desks and chairs, our class was transformed into a train traveling out of Denmark. A Nazi soldier, again played by Aurelia (the theater educator), boarded the train and began to interview the passengers (the kids in our class). The kids were all assigned different roles, such as being a member of a Jewish family, being a member of a group of non-Jewish colleagues who were traveling for business, and other various roles. As they were questioned by the Nazi soldier, the kids did a very impressive job sticking to their characters as they tried to prove that they should not be targets of the soldier’s investigations. As really happened in history, the soldier identified many people, Jews and non-Jews, that she thought needed to be taken off the train. Passengers (the kids) were forced to quickly think on their feet and to come up with explanations to try and save themselves and their companions. This sparked a rich discussion later on as we discussed what the kids were thinking about during the activity.
There is no doubting that this is a very realistic activity. One of the challenges in teaching kids about the Holocaust is helping kids to develop a frame of reference. Here, fortunately, the kids in our class do not generally have any basis for understanding the concepts of genocide, hatred, and Anti-Semitism. We work very hard to give the kids an understanding of what happened, and an ability to relate to the experiences of people who lived during that time, while not putting the kids under undue stress.
Following these activities, the kids and I always have follow-up conversations, and I encourage kids to share their feelings and their concerns. I always reassure the students that these are events that happened long ago, and that they are safe here in their homes, in Connecticut. When the kids share how sad it is to learn about this, I remind them about the importance of learning about these historical events, among other reasons, so that we can make absolutely sure that nothing like this ever happens again. We had a wonderful conversation about the challenges that people in Europe (Jews and non-Jews) faced in the 1930’s and 1940’s, and I was really impressed by the kids’ mature contributions to the discussion.
Some of the kids may come home and start discussions about these activities. I encourage you to continue to have these discussions with your children, as I try to avoid going into some of the more graphic details with kids. Students are explicitly asked to avoid discussing these topics during lunch and recess so that they can benefit from having an adult to facilitate the conversations.
If your son and daughter seems concerned or stressed by what they’ve learned, I encourage you to remind them, first and foremost, that their feelings are understandable and valid! I never tell kids “not to be upset” because the material we are learning about is, in fact, upsetting. It’s understandable for kids to feel upset and saddened by the events, but if they are afraid, I remind them that these are events from long ago, and that they are safe in their own communities. I also remind them that the police in their community are very different from the Nazi soldiers who patrolled the streets in Copenhagen, and that the police officers in their town are trustworthy, safe people who really are there to help and protect them.
Tomorrow will be the last day of the role playing activities. They will learn about some of the later events in the text, and at the end, the students will receive copies of the novel, which we will read in school together. This week’s activities will serve as a framework for when we read the novel together. I ask that you continue to discourage your kids from reading or learning about the book until we read it in class together.
Please continue to be in touch with me if you have any questions as we continue this important unit.
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
January 26, 2016
Update of Number the Stars (Day 2)
Today, Aurelia from The Hartford Stage came for our second day of learning about Number the Stars. The kids began by pantomiming several scenes, such as blowing out the candles on a birthday cake. The kids really enjoyed figuring out how to act out those scenes, especially since these moments were so familiar to them. Following these tableaux, Aurelia led the students in a safe discussion about what was happening in and around Copenhagen (the setting of the story) in the 1930s. She introduced the concept of the Holocaust, and I was surprised by how much many students already knew. She explained that Hilter looked for someone to blame for the problems happening in Germany and that the Jews were made into scapegoats. She shared that, eventually, many of the Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps where many worked and many perished. The kids took this topic seriously, and I admire their maturity during the discussion. I should say that there are times when students have additional prior knowledge and may start to share more sensitive information than what we’d normally choose to include. Aurelia and I both redirect the conversations when this happens, and we remind kids that some things are best discussed with families at home. There were a few instances of this today, and we were able to shift the focus back to what we were trying to address. In the event that something particularly sensitive is shared by a student in front of the whole class, I’ll, of course, give you a heads-up so you can be prepared for questions at home. I’ll communicate that through email, not through our class website.
Toward the end of the activity, students thought about what sounds they’d hear in a war zone. Ideas included explosions, gun shots, car engines roaring, people shouting, etc. Students made a “sound circle” where they created a cacophony of the sounds they’d expect to hear during a time of war. Finally, one group of four students recreated the previous tableaux of those familiar moments, but this time, with the “soundtrack” of the sound circle. This helped the kids to imagine how so many of these familiar moments would be different during wartime. Kids shared how they’d feel if they had to live during these situations, and their comments were deep. As I said in a previous message, these students don’t have much understanding of ideas like war, persecution, or hatred, and activities like these help them to understand these concepts a bit better.
Following these activities, I always remind students of a few things: (1) They are completely safe. We’re studying events from our world’s history, and by learning about them, we can work to ensure that they never happen again. But they are absolutely safe in their homes, school, and community. (2) These topics should be discussed when there’s an adult there to facilitate the conversation. So this isn’t appropriate conversation for the lunchroom, playground, bus, etc. (3) There are some things that might be upsetting or alarming. Kids can always come to me if they’re feeling worried or anxious, and they can talk to their grownups at home as well.
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
January 25, 2016
Cub Reporter Message: Learning About Fractions
Written by Student #20
Hi parents, teachers and whoever else might be reading this. This is #20 here. I have an impulse to tell you something very important that we have been working on…EATING CANDY! Nah i’m just kidding, though I wish eating candy WAS one of the things we were working on. The real thing we are working on is fractions. We haven’t gotten to adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing, but have been working on generating and figuring out equivalent fractions. Actually, the more I think about it we DID eat candy. On the first day of fractions we broke up, then ate Hershey bars. On the second and third days we worked on generating equivalent fractions. On the fifth and sixth days the class “added” fractions with shape blocks, for example:
(Editor’s note from Mr. Moss: This lesson presented a hexagon as the whole. So a trapezoid was worth 1/2, and two halves equaled a whole. A triangle was worth 1/6, because six of those blocks equaled one hexagon block.) After that we worked on recognizing equivalent fractions for two or three day. Most recently, we have been comparing fractions with benchmark numbers, for example:
I hope you have enjoyed (and understood) this edition of cub reporter updates.
Posted in Class Updates, Student News|By Jon Moss
January 22, 2016
Diversity and Civil Rights – Part 2
Pictured: Martin Luther King (2nd from left) and Abraham Joshua Heschel (right)
Today, we finished reading As Good As Anybody. You may remember that the first half of the book introduced us to Martin Luther King, Jr., starting from when he was a young boy. The second half of the book taught us about Abraham Joshua Heschel, a Jewish man who fought for the rights of Jews who were being persecuted, much as Dr. King did for African Americans. The two men teamed up and worked together to accomplish their shared goal of earning equal civil rights and fair treatment for ALL.
While the kids were, of course, familiar with Dr. King, Abraham Joshua Heschel was a new name to them. The book hints at how Jews were treated unjustly in Europe during World War II, and it lets us add to our previous understanding of discrimination by race or gender by understanding the idea of discrimination by religion. This transitions beautifully to an activity we’re starting next week.
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
January 20, 2016
Learning to Appreciate Poetry
“Poetry is boring!” at least, according to many fourth graders. Or should I say, it WAS boring. Our class is wrapping up a unit of study about poetry, and it’s been a terrific experience! Fourth graders often dislike poetry, and I think one of the biggest reasons is that poems tend to be shorter and more artistic, which causes them to often offer fewer ways in which students can connect to them. We like texts to which we’re able to relate, and that often comes as the result of detail and elaboration, something often scarce in poems. Mrs. Dolch and I wanted to change the kids’ feelings, so our classes teamed up for this unit. Two weeks ago, we started our study of poetry by comparing it to traditional writing, called prose. Students learned about the kind of writing that makes poetry poetry, including the use of similes and metaphors, hyperbole (exaggeration), personification (giving human-like qualities to a non-living thing), rhyme, repeated language, rhythm, stanzas, and much more. We also learned that all songs, when spoken without musical notes, read like a poem. (This made a few poetry converts, I think.)
Last week, Mrs. Dolch and I merged our classes to start a poetry interpretation project based on the book Amber Was Brave, Essie Was Smart. This book tells the story of two sisters, but it does so in the form of over a dozen poems. Unlike stand-alone poems, these poems ffit together to give us more and more insight into the two girls, allowing the students to make more connections to the text. As we hoped, kids reported enjoying these poems more than others they’ve read. After we read the first five poems in the book, students split into groups to focus on one of the other terrific poems from the text. Each student focused on a particular area of the poetry interpretation, and those students met in “Expert Jigsaw Groups” where they shared their poems but focused in on their one areas. For example, several students who focused on theme met and discussed each of their poem’s theme, while other students met to discuss similes and metaphors in their poems. Following these discussions, the “Home Poem Groups” reconvened, and each expert reported out on what he or she learned about the poem while in their Expert Jigsaw Group. (Jigsaw groups are a form of instruction in which students work together to focus on one area, in order to build expertise, and then they come together with their other peers to each share their knowledge, which fits together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Credit to Mrs. Dolch who turned me on to this idea!) The Home Poem Groups discussed each expert’s ideas and have worked this week to develop a Google Slideshow about their poem. Later this week (hopefully) and next week, the groups will share out about their poems by reciting the poems and presenting their impressive slideshows. We have been so impressed by the students’ work and the depth of their thought! They did such a great job that we invited Mr. Giannini to join us last Thursday to see the kids in action, and he was proud of how well the kids shared their ideas and collaborated with one another!
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
January 20, 2016
Diversity and Civil Rights – Part 1
Martin Luther King Day is such an important day in our country, and in our class, it kicks off our informal unit about Civil Rights. Yesterday, we read the first half of a wonderful book called As Good As Anybody. This book tells the story of Martin Luther King Jr., starting from his life as a young boy. It gave us a wonderful opportunity to talk about the concepts of discrimination, segregation, separate-but-equal (and the inherent flaw in that idea) and more. I’m always glad to see how confused kids are by this – The idea of treating someone unkindly because of their skin color was totally alien to the kids, and they couldn’t fathom how someone would do this to another person. To better illustrate this, we discuss the idea of gender-based discrimination: Are boys better at math than girls? A lot of people think so, so what happens when a male and female are applying for a job at an architectural firm? We discussed how some people might make an unfair decision, and we extended this to form a concept about racial discrimination. Helping kids to build a frame of reference better enables them to understand these ideas. This will launch us into our continuing study of diversity and civil rights. On Friday, we’ll read the second half of this book. Stay tuned for the second half of this message, coming at the end of this week!
Posted in Class Updates|By Jon Moss
January 14, 2016
Cub Reporter Message: What’s Happening in Unified Arts?
Written by Student #20
Hi! Here in Mr. Moss’s class we have many jobs such as line leader and station manager. We have started performing one called cub reporter. I am writing this because I am the first one doing it. Cub reporter is a jobs where we update Mr. Moss’s website as things happen in class. Enough with the introductions. In unified arts we have done many different things. In music we have been working on compositions that we will present with our choice of method: instrument, or vocally. As a grade, we have been working on songs for our winter concert. Miss Torres has taught us a collection of excellent songs. In Spanish, we have been working on food, or comida. The word for chicken is pollo! (pronounced poh-yo) We have also been earning letters in Spanish. They are ways of reward. If we make a word with our letters we get a celebration. In art we worked on “op”, or optical art. We used calligraphy pens to make thick and thin lines. Optical art is when the artist tricks the viewer’s eyes into seeing something. In library, aside from checking out books, we have worked on evaluating websites. We would go onto assigned websites and watch out for things that would make the website more or less credible. You can ask your child for an expanded explanation.
Posted in Class Updates, Student News|By Jon Moss