Marblehead Community Charter Public School
Character & Identity Exhibition
June 18, 2008
Grade Four Overview
I. ANCIENT CHINA: DRAGON AND LOTUS
The Dragon and Lotus, both prevalent symbols in ancient China, represent our global theme of Character and Identity and reflect the history and culture of this civilization.
Students will become playwrights, producers, directors, and actors to present a play based on the Chinese folktale, A Grain of Rice by Helena Clare Pittman. A mathematics unit connected to the folktale will enhance students’ understanding of place value, estimation, multiplication and very large numbers.
Student poets will compose Asian haiku poems integrated with the Science benchmarks of plant and animal life.
Student historians will research Chinese inventions and technologies and display their findings.
Student builders will create authentic Chinese rice paper kites.
Student mathematicians will study the geometry of tangrams and create original designs with tangram pieces. Tangrams are believed to have originated in ancient China.
II. SIMILES, STANZAS, SENSES, AND STARS: GRADE FOUR POETS
Grade Four students will become performers and poets to enhance their understanding of this delightful, serious, humorous, and sensitive writing form.
As budding poets, Grade Four students will write poetry:
Similes: Students will recognize examples of similes in a poem.
Stanzas: Students will create various poem structures and identify rhyme and
rhythm in poems.
Senses: Students will use sensory images in poetry.
Stars: Students will recite poetry, both assigned and of their choice.
III. METAMORPHOSIS: THE LIFE CYCLE
Students will take on the role of biologists and photojournalists as they study the life cycles of plants, butterflies and frogs.
Working in teams, students will research and create LifeCycleScapes, that will record and narrate the different stages of a life. Students will take photos, create an introduction, and edit their descriptions and transitions as a group. Individual students will be responsible for creating an illustration of an entire life cycle.
Students will maintain a daily journal of observations of the life cycle of live tadpoles and caterpillars and grow a plant from seed to flower while recording its daily growth.