Tuesday, October 4, 2016

4th Grade Explorers Living Museum

The first unit of the year, Explorers, culminated in many ways this week on Monday with a Living Museum.

The theme of the unit, Where We Are In Time and Place, was clearly evident in the range and variety of explorers portrayed by the children. Some were explorers from before the European Great Age of Exploration initiated by Prince Henry of Portugal, such as Chang Chi'en, who is credited with establishing the Silk Road. Others chose explorers who sought to be first, such as polar explorers and space explorers. Hopefully, your daughter is able to use her knowledge of the story of exploration to speculate about future explorations. 




In addition to dressing as an explorer, the children prepared an introduction and five questions that helped museum visitors pinpoint facts and information that made their explorers unique.




Students also prepared explorer cards during the unit. The cards featured an explorer and were used to compare and contrast explorers and explorations in general.




Three concepts in particular came up repeatedly: causation, change and perspective. Challenge your daughter to give examples of each!






What's next? Fourth graders will inquire into the theme, Who We Are. Our focus will be the human body. The central idea is "the effective interactions between human body systems contribute to health and survival".




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