From Amy:

Happy New Year, New School families!

I’ve had a whale of a time teaching in Grade 4 with Tori this week! Years ago, when I was teaching third graders, we did a fully integrated unit on the study of whales. I have brought that unit to the New School, including integrating arts, science, poetry, research, vocabulary, and more. 

Our language arts study is rooted in an excellent book, Song for a Whale, that follows a young, deaf girl as she becomes concerned when she learns of a whale that sings at a frequency not understood by other whales. The book has provided opportunities for conversations about whale songs and behaviors and how a deaf person communicates through sign language and lip reading. The book serves as a foundation for additional learning about whales.

Fourth graders are also creating Cetacean pages, which, when compiled at the end of the unit, will lead to a dictionary of over 20 whale vocabulary words. It’s been fun to see the students illustrating their dictionary words and drawing different kinds of whales. This includes both baleen and toothed whales. Math has included scaled drawings and comparisons of actual whale sizes and weights. We’ve also done science experiments with a “blubber glove,” a model using Crisco to demonstrate how blubber serves as an insulator for the most enormous whale.

Next week, we’ll continue with whale research in pods, taking time to research five different whales, including orca, blue, humpback, right, and sperm. The students have been impressive in their desire to read non-fiction books, to solve puzzles, and to work collaboratively on an art project to build a scaled model of a whale.  

My favorite teaching method is using a project approach that connects subject areas and builds expertise. The goal of bringing together subject areas allows students to use multiple modalities to understand whales more fully. It’s not just about reading about whales, it’s about drawing a life-size whale in the parking lot to understand the size of these giant creatures, as well as finding open-ended questions for students to ponder and research. Watch out for whales ahead as the fourth graders become cetacean experts through our study!

Have a lovely weekend!
 
Warmly,
 

 
 
Amy Vorenberg
Head of School
Hip hip hooray for January birthdays!
 
1/4    Fifi    Palka    PK
1/5    Lyla    Hudson    6th
1/7    Jeffrey    Giacchetti    4th
1/17    Charlie    Hayes    PK
1/18    Quinn    LaChuisa    7th
1/18    Stella    Davis    5th
1/24    Hendrix    Wall    6th
1/27    Alaire    McShay    3rd
1/27    Porsche    Thairatana    PK
1/28    Audrey    Conway    1st