Last week, fourth graders decided that they wanted to join fifth and sixth graders who planned to join the Global Climate Strike initiated by climate activist Greta Thunberg. We discussed the causes and meaning of climate change, and students were offered the chance to join older students at LES if they were interested in doing so. After a lot of discussion and questioning–including parsing out the fact that activism can’t be required–everyone decided to participate. We made posters, many of them out of repurposed cardboard, and marched out of the cafeteria after lunch on Friday. Our march was across the field to the library, where several fifth and sixth graders spoke. Afterwards many of us planted our signs there for the community to read. State Representative Natalie Blais attended, as well as many LES families and community members.

In the first week of school, fourth graders started thinking about their hopes and dreams for the new school year. How will each of us find a way to bring our best self to this classroom? We’ve completed a beautiful paper Hopes and Dreams quilt that brings together the goals of everyone in our class.

After defining some hopes and dreams, our next major task was to brainstorm and choose rules for our classroom. These rules will help each of our individual hopes and dreams to be realized. Fourth graders did some serious thinking and positive collaboration in the second and third weeks of school until they finally voted to choose a final 4 rules that we can all agree to follow this year. Check our the Photos tab to see the LONG list of rules that students brainstormed, as well as their proposed final rules and completed Constitution.

We were proud of these rules and felt that they might even inspire other classes at LES. There will soon be a bulletin board display showing the process we went through to create them. Take a look at it, and at our Hopes and Dreams quilt the next time you’re near Room 118.

Welcome to the Leverett Elementary School Fourth Grade blog! It’s been on hiatus for several years while I was the Essential Skills Teacher for grades 4-6. I’m pleased to be back in fourth grade for the fall of 2019.

This site will be a place to share information about our activities and adventures in fourth grade during the 2019-2020 school year.