• Examined physical, topographical, and political maps to study the geography of New York State

• Learned about the features of the three major mountain ranges in New York

• Created postcards from student-selected regions in New York

Up next we will...

• Begin our second unit- Native Americans: First Inhabitants of New York

• Study the ways of life, customs, beliefs, traditions, values, and contributions of the Lenape

• A museum historian from the Plimoth Patuxet Museum will visit our classroom on October 6th portraying Mistress Barbara Standish. We will use the colonial woman’s perspective in contrast with Native perspectives throughout the unit.

Since our first day of school, we have focused on getting to know each other as a class and establishing our daily routines with rituals, while also getting familiar with our teachers and classmates.

In German class, we reviewed the most important topics from 3rd grade to prepare for 4th grade:

• Identifying nouns, adjectives, and verbs

• Writing complete sentences

• Combining nouns to create new compound words

Coming up next:

• FRESCH strategies for spelling

• Parts of speech in more detail

We began the year by revisiting key concepts from 3rd grade:

• Numbers up to 1,000

• Multiplication

• Written addition and subtraction

Coming up next:

• Expanding our number range to 100,000 and later to 1,000,000

• Class routines and jobs have been established, and students have been practicing the Spanish vocabulary needed to carry them out.

• Students made their “chapa de identificación” and practiced talking about their name, school, and language.

  
  

Coming soon:

• Students will continue exploring basic vocabulary, nationalities, and the verb llamarse in the singular forms

• Planning realistic fiction stories by thinking about problems, settings, and characters.

• Writing details by breaking the action down to show, not tell.

• Using our reading journals to record our thoughts on what we are reading.

• Identifying the subject or predicate of a sentence and the different types of sentences.

Next month we will...

• Begin editing our writing to add more dialogue and action.

• Learn how to use internal traits to talk about characters in our books and gather evidence to support our ideas.

• Discover different ways to make complex sentences.

• Start building our spelling toolkit by learning about prefixes and suffixes and revisiting important spelling rules.

1. Students made a personal sketch book and designed the cover

2. We examined a Matisse drawing and found and described different kind of lines. Students transferred those lines into their sketchbook, named them and gave them a “feeling" description

3. Students then put into practice what they have learned by “going on a journey with the pencil on a piece of paper”: the line transforms and switches between different kind of lines while experiencing different emotions and adventures along the way

   
   

Coming soon:

I will introduce our topic “nature” and students will practice drawing plants, flowers, trees and bushes by using different kind of lines. We will also learn about contour drawing and how to add surface/texture by shading.

Yesss! The rollboards from Germany and the boxes have arrived – thank you very much for the donations. Our PE program has gained a new activity area!

• Reviewed gym rules and behavior.

• Practiced more complex game forms than last year.

• Started with the Rollboard License.

• First explorative practice: How to move safely and effectively on the rollboard.

• Discussed safety rules: rollboard parking, equipment distribution, no standing on the boards, tying back hair.

Coming soon

• Completing more challenging obstacle courses with the rollboards.

• Working on speed, coordination, and control.

• Moving toward the final Rollboard License test and receiving the certificate.

• Introductory activities through personal profiles

• A review of the topic human senses, which was covered last year

Our current unit focuses on the forest, including:

• Its functions

• Its inhabitants

• Its global significance

As part of this unit:

• Students will work in groups

• Each group will prepare a presentation on a key forest-related topic

The upcoming unit will cover children’s rights, aiming to:

• Promote awareness of their rights

• Strengthen the students’ political understanding and sense of agency

Up next we will…

• Play simple songs on the recorder

• Learn to read and write musical notation in the treble clef

• Learn seasonal fall and Halloween songs

• Began our first unit focusing on our bodies

• Built models of fingers to demonstrate how tendons and muscles work

• looked at the structure of the eye and how we process light

Next up...

• How our brain and nervous system connect

1. students learn to see basic forms inside an object and lightly draw these first before going into more details and adding the contour line. That way we make sure to capture correct sizes, forms and proportions

2. we created a list of ideas for various plant types, so we have a library to pick from when we start our master piece

3. We learn about different shading techniques, and how to draw light and dark with a pencil

   
   

Coming soon:

We will observe how other artists draw nature/landscapes and look at:

- for- and background

- how objects are large in front and small in the distance

- how overlapping creates space

- and we want to challenge ourselves to see how many different shades of green we can mix with colored pencils

• Had a museum historian from the Plimoth Patuxet Museum visit our classroom portraying Mistress Barbara Standish. We will use the colonial woman’s perspective in contrast with Native perspectives throughout this unit.

• Began our second unit- Native Americans: First Inhabitants of New York

• Had an introduction to the Lenape. We listened to an original Lenape story called "The Bear and the Blue Corn." We compared what happened in the Lenape story to what Manhattan is like today.

  
  

Up next we will...

• Study the ways of life, customs, beliefs, traditions, values, and contributions of the Lenape

• The layers of the forest

• Animals that live in the forest

• Plants in the forest

• Threats and dangers facing forest ecosystems

As part of this unit:

• Students worked in groups

• Each group prepared and presented on one of the above topics

We concluded the topic of fungi by:

• Cutting open a mushroom

• Drawing and labeling its key parts

Before beginning the next unit on children’s rights, we will first explore:

• Agriculture and food production in the unit “From Farm to Table”

This month, we concentrated on forming nouns from adjectives, learning and memorizing common endings such as:

• -ung

• -tum

• -heit

• -keit

• (and others!)

We also reviewed the verb tenses, focusing on Präsens (simple present) and Präteritum (simple past). We practiced recognizing the different verb endings and discussed when and why we use each tense.

Coming Up Next:

• FRESCH strategies for spelling

• A closer look at the parts of speech in more detail

In October, we worked on several important topics. We continued revising key competencies from Grade 3 and began expanding our number range up to 100,000. We built a field of 10,000 and practiced breaking down large numbers into thousands, hundreds, tens, and ones.

We also started exploring Geometry, challenging our spatial imagination with different shapes and patterns.

Coming Up Next:

• Building cube constructions and drawing their plans

• Continuing to expand our number range up to 100,000, and later to 1,000,000

• Continued playing the recorder, learning the song “Merrily we Roll along”

• Sang the fall song “Bunt sind schon die Wälder

• Began learning about the staff system and musical notation
  

Up next we will…

• Learn to read and write musical notation in the treble clef

• Learn the songs “Hoch” and “A Million Dreams”

• Continued with the Rollboard License unit

• Practiced various obstacle courses

• Learned new techniques for balance, steering, and coordination

• Trained safe setup and takedown of equipment

• Created and tested own obstacle courses in group work

Coming soon

• Final Rollboard License test

• Demonstrating control, coordination, and teamwork to earn certificates

This month we...

• Learned about the meaning, origin, and history of the Day of the Dead and made an ofrenda for our school’s altar.

• Continued to practice more phrases to help us communicate and follow directions in the classroom.

• Practice asking and answering questions about our age and nationality.

• Reviewed numbers 1–15.

• Learned exciting words to talk about birthday parties and gifts.

Next:

We will learn vocabulary related to the family and how to use the verbs “es” and “son.

• Learned alternatives for the word "said" and how they can show character traits or emotions

• Started using paragraphs to break up our writing

• Practiced identifying character traits and explaining why we think a character embodies that trait

• Explored compound and complex sentences

• Wrote spooky stories

Next month we will...

• Edit and publish one of our stories

• Discuss theme and practice

• Learn the rules for singular and plural nouns, including possessive nouns

Coming Soon: Our next unit will focus on animal and plant adaptations, including learned behaviors and instincts.

Next up: we are focusing on plant adaptations and how plant structures vary depending on their environment.

1. We went outside to draw nature from real life.

2. Students learned how to mixed unique colors with colored pencil by laying different colors and by pressing harder or lighter. Finally we held a class competition who can mix the most different green tones.

3. We looked at a painting of Henri Rousseau and observed how he cropped his painting by cutting elements on all sides and how he showed depth by layering elements in the foreground and background

Coming soon:

Now we are prepared for our master piece: "A detailed look into lush nature".

• Learned about the way of life of the Lenape people. We learned about their houses, food, jobs, and clans

• We examined Native American totem pole art and learned that totem poles were traditionally created by tribes of the Pacific Northwest. Then, we imagined what a Lenape totem pole might look like if the Lenape people had made them. Groups of students chose a Lenape clan and designed a totem pole inspired by their selection.

Up next we will...

• Learn about the traditional roles of the Lenape women, men, and children, and create a "Day in the Life" book imagining what it may look like for the Lenape people.

• Learn about traditional stories and art of the Lenape people

• Learn about the contributions from the Lenape people that are still present today

• Students practiced public speaking by delivering a brief introduction, which included a greeting, their name, and their age.

• Reinforced the skill of asking and responding about age, along with practicing numbers 0 to 15.

• Practiced vocabulary related to birthdays and birthday parties.

• Reviewed the concept of gender and number of nouns.

• Mastered the use of both definite articles (el, la, los, las) and indefinite articles (un, una).

• Learned vocabulary related to the family.

Next:

We will focus on two key areas: expressing possession (using some possessive adjectives and the preposition 'de') and learning vocabulary to describe family and kinship.

Coming soon
· Apply teamwork skills in more complex group activities.
· Strengthen cooperation, communication, and fair play.

As an introduction, we explored:

• Wild and domestic animals and how they differ

• Their roles within agricultural systems

To support this unit, each student has begun creating a lapbook. The first section focuses on: “Arbeiten in den Jahreszeiten” – understanding how work on a farm changes throughout the year.

In addition to this new topic, we also wrapped up key ideas from our forest unit. Students completed their first quiz on Nahrungsketten und -beziehungen im Wald, demonstrating what they learned about how animals and plants depend on each other in forest ecosystems.

We look forward to adding more entries to the lapbooks as we continue our journey from farm to table in the coming weeks!

• Focused on a project adapting Native American folktales into plays

• Practiced summarizing stories and breaking them down into scenes

• Looked at how to use dialogue in a play

• Learned about common and proper nouns

Next month we will...

• Perform our plays for the class

• Read and write personal essays

• Dig into spelling rules for nouns

• Learned about the staff system

• Began reading and writing musical notation

• Continued preparing the songs for our winter celebration performance
  

Up next we will…

• Deepen our understanding of musical notation

• Continue getting ready for our winter celebration show

By reading sentences, we had to identify the word that didn’t make sense in each one. We completed a test that compares our reading level and comprehension to students in Germany.

We also started our Reading Buddy Project with 2nd grade.

In small groups, we prepared a book to read aloud. After reading, we discussed the story, chose five important words to summarize it, and created a drawing together with our 2nd-grade buddies. The final result is our Thanksgiving turkey, filled with all our summary words.

Coming up next:

• We will continue working with the FRESCH reading strategies.

In addition, we learned how to use the calculator for simple addition and subtraction.

Coming up next:

• We will continue exploring and playing with place value.

Coming soon
· Shift the focus toward more creative games that encourage students to think strategically and work together in new ways.
· Continue strengthening teamwork, communication, and fair play through playful group activities.

Coming up:

• parts of speech (focus on nouns)

Coming up:

• working with place value chart (Stellentafel) and exploring place values (Stellen)

• identifying, building, taking apart, and drawing different 3D shapes and their nets.

1. Students started on their master piece. They received a square format paper and everyone had to sketch out their "zoomed in nature composition" with light pencil. The goal was to show a large variety of nature elements and show depth through layering and overlapping.

2. Then it was time to add color. Through shading with lighter and darker accents, nature forms look more 3-D and more alive. Also, color mixing makes the color palette more interesting.

   
   

Coming up soon:

Adding more details and textures and staying with the work until full refinement.

• The Verb Tener: Students have learned to use the verb tener (to have) to describe possession, focusing on singular forms.

• Thematic Vocabulary: We have practiced using classroom and birthday-related vocabulary to identify, describe various objects and express possession.

• Descriptive Skills: Students practiced asking and answering questions about objects, including details like color and ensuring correct gender and number agreement.

• Family & Possession: We introduced the use of the preposition "de" to discuss family members and describe relationships within their own families and others'.

Our next steps:

• Cumulative Project: Students will now consolidate these skills through a creative project where they will introduce themselves, describe their family, and talk about their birthday celebrations.

Students worked further on their lapbooks, with time to work independently at their own pace. They were able to make their own layout and design choices while exploring many different aspects of agriculture and life on a farm.

Topics covered in the lapbooks included:

• Work on the farm throughout the seasons

• Corn and potatoes

• Animals on the farm and animal families

• Different types of farmers

• Milk and dairy products

• Farm buildings

• Farming in the past and today

  
  

Through a class vote, students decided that the next quiz will focus on farming in the past and today and animal families.

Looking ahead:
In the new year, we will begin a new unit on children’s rights (Kinderrechte).

• Learned about the traditional roles of the Lenape men, women, and children, and imagined what a day in their life might have looked like.

• Examined Lenape contributions that are still present in NYC today.

• Created a collaborative poster with group members on Lenape contributions

  
  

Up next we will...

• Begin our new unit exploring the colonial and revolutionary periods in the United States.

continued to learn about adaptations by modeling different types of tree branches and testing how they bear weight. This helps students understand which trees are best suited for different climates.

Next month we will...
Begin our next unit focusing on Earth’s geographical features and the rock cycle.

4th grade students worked hard and did a wonderful job performing at this year’s Winter Celebration. The video was included in the weekly newsletter before winter break.

Up next in Musik we will…

• Prepare for the music notation exam

Explore Peer Gynt by Edvard Grieg

• Presented our Native American folktale plays

• Began writing personal essays by freewriting

• Practiced writing down what we already know and what we want to focus on before reading nonfiction books

• Learned spelling rules for plural nouns and possessive nouns

Next month we will...

• Dig in to essay structures

• Learn different note-taking strategies

• Begin our next grammar unit on verbs

• Began our new unit exploring the colonial and revolutionary periods in the United States.

• Learned about the Age of Exploration and the reasons Europeans wanted to discover new land.

• Created an "Exploration Plan," imagining we were European explorers setting off on a journey. We considered our motive, what to bring, our route, and the obstacles we might face.

• Learned about 5 main explorers of New York- Verrazzano, Hudson, Block, Champlain, and Cartier

• Compared the Native American vs. European perspectives on the conquest of "new land"

Up next we will...

• Compare the early Dutch vs. English rule of New York (New Amsterdam)

• Learn about the causes of the American Revolution

• Learn about the leaders of the Revolution

• Compare and contrast the traits of Patriots and Loyalists

1. Students finished their first master piece: "A detailed look into nature". Here students are reflecting on their process and their finished work. Bravo!!!!!!

3. 4th graders have also practiced drawing various NY underwater animals and plants from photographs. We always pay attention to details and textures.

Coming up soon:

We will be creating our own collage paper by hand-painting sheets of paper with tempera paint. For that purpose we will first need to study the true colors of our NY rivers. Students will experiment with texture and brush strokes and pay attention to color scheme.

In small groups, students chose one of the 42 children’s rights and created a short one-minute scene to present it. These scenes will be filmed and shared with our partner class, who will try to guess which children’s right is being represented.

Through this project, students are deepening their understanding of their rights while strengthening teamwork, creativity, and presentation skills.

Alongside our exchange project, we are also continuing our unit on Space and Planets. Working in pairs, students are creating fact sheets about important planets, stars, and moons, building their research and collaboration skills.

Looking ahead:
In March, we will begin our new unit Water and Weather, where students will explore natural phenomena and the science behind them.

Coming soon
· Introduce small-sided team challenges where students design their own strategies and roles within the group.
· Explore problem-solving movement tasks (e.g., team obstacle courses where everyone must contribute to succeed).
· Begin combining cooperative elements with simple competitive formats to strengthen tactical thinking and fair play.
· Continue developing leadership skills, responsibility, and constructive feedback within teams.

What We’ve Accomplished

We have finished the first half of the unit, focusing on identifying objects and using numbers in context. Students can now:

Identify School Supplies: Use vocabulary for items like mochila, tijeras, and cuaderno.

Discuss Music: Name instruments and categorize them into families (cuerdas, percusión, vientos).

Use Numbers 16–30: Apply these numbers to count objects and solve basic math problems in Spanish.

Identify Existence: Use the structure ¿Hay...? / Sí, hay... to talk about what is in the classroom.

What’s Next:

Routines & Activities

We are now moving into the final part of the unit, which shifts from naming objects to describing actions. We will focus on:

Classroom Logic: Explaining the order of activities (e.g., "Primero escuchamos, después tocamos instrumentos").

Daily School Life: Phrases for waking up, arriving at school, and describing a typical schedule (Math, Music, Recess).

The goal is to help students move from single words to flowing sentences about their own daily experiences.

• Investigated the features and processes that shape Earth’s surface

• Explored rapid changes like volcanic eruptions

• Examined slower processes such as weathering and erosion

• Applied our learning to design solutions that reduce the impact of natural processes on people and communities

Up Next:

We will start our World our Sound Unit where we will:

• Explore the science of sound

• Build simple devices to feel vibrations

• Use digital tools to visualize sound waves and understand how different vibrations create different sounds

• Started looking at the 5-paragraph essay structure for opinion pieces

• Used note-taking strategies like webs and Venn diagrams to help us find main ideas for the nonfiction we use

• Learned how to match verbs to their subject and the spelling rules for present, past, and future-tense words

• During Kindness Week we made flexagons with ways to be kind and inclusive

Next month we will...

• Wrap up our personal essays and move into writing poetry

• Move to reading nonfiction about history and begin learning how to research a specific topic

• Begin learning to type

Coming up:

• Expanding multiplication into the number range up to 10,000

• Identifying, building, taking apart, and drawing different 3D shapes and their nets

Furthermore, we talked about Fasching, wrote our own jokes, and prepared to perform them at the Lower School Fasching celebration.

Coming up:

• Continuing to practice identifying parts of a sentence

• Starting our weekly presentations about a profession

• Learned about the origins and characteristics of jazz music

• Learned to sing the song “Little Liza Jane”

• Began writing original group lyrics to the melody

Up next, we will…

• Perform “Little Liza Jane” with our original lyrics

• Learn about the life and music of Nina Simone

• Learn to sing the song “Kompliment” by the group Sportfreunde Stiller and add drums, piano, guitar, bass, and percussion to create a full band arrangement

Coming soon
· Move on to more complex games that require advanced strategy, communication, and teamwork.
· Further develop tactical thinking in dynamic and competitive situations.
· Continue strengthening cooperation, leadership, and fair play in increasingly challenging activities.

We started our new class story “Wer ist Lolly Blu?”, which we’re excited to continue after spring break.

🌟 A big highlight was our “Nur-Deutsch” challenge! The students are making great progress speaking German in class and already earned their first reward: a snack party with a movie 🎉

Coming up:

• continue Lolly Blu book

• focus on nouns

This month, we continued working on multiplication and expanded our number range.

We also learned how to add and subtract numbers up to 10,000.

➡️ Coming up:
• Solving real-world math problems (Rechnen in Sachsituationen)
• Working with numbers up to 100,000 🚀

• Compared the early Dutch vs. English rule of New York (New Amsterdam)

• Learned about the causes of the American Revolution and created foldables and mini-posters to share our learning

• Learned about the leaders of the Revolution

• Compared and contrasted the traits of Patriots and Loyalists

• Learned about the battles of the American Revolution

• Learned about the results of the American Revolution

Up next we will...

• Begin our new unit- Freedom and the New Nation: Federal, State, and Local Government

In our Space unit, students created Steckbriefe (fact sheets) on the planets of the solar system, strengthening their research and presentation skills. We then transitioned into our new unit on Water and Weather, using the concept of tides (Ebbe und Flut) as a bridge between topics. Students explored the Wasserkreislauf (water cycle) and began understanding key natural processes.

Looking ahead:
In the coming lessons, we will focus on learning about wind and its effects as part of our ongoing Water and Weather unit.

have been are exploring the science of sound by:

• Building devices to feel vibrations

• Using digital tools to visualize sound waves

• Investigating how sound waves affect what we hear

Coming up:

We will start our new unit in which we will explore types of Energy!

1. Collage techniques: neatly gluing, cutting and tearing paper, layering and overlapping forms, detailing and textures

2. students practiced making their first collage animals or objects for their pop-up book. No pencil allowed! Every detail with paper!

3. This week we started planning and practicing our pop-up scene. Students experimented with different tabs and planned out their story and characters.

   
   

Coming soon:

We will be starting with the Master piece Pop-Up Book. The ground will be drawn with oil pastels and the pop-up characters will be made with collage technique and their painted papers.

Next, we will review the distinction between hay and está, focusing on when to express existence versus location

• Went on a field trip to Jazz at Lincoln Center

• Learned about the life and music of Nina Simone

• Analyzed her song “To Be Free”

• Were introduced to the song “Kompliment”

• Chose an instrument to play for the song, such as keyboard, vocals, electric bass, guitar, drums, or percussion

Up next, we will…

• Begin rehearsing “Kompliment” in small groups using our chosen instruments

• Develop ensemble skills as we prepare the song for performance

• Continued practicing finding the main idea when reading nonfiction texts.

• Began planning for our final writing project.

• Worked on spelling and vocabulary through games like Scrabble and Quiddler.

• Practiced keeping our fingers on the home keys while typing

Next month we will...

• Tackle reading and writing poetry. We will dig into figurative language and different poetic forms.

• Wrap up verbs and begin studying adjectives.

4th graders worked diligently on their pop-up books and finished them this week. The background was drawn using oil pastels and the pop-ups were made solely with collage. Students used our research about NYC's waterway secrets as their foundation, but were encouraged to also let their own imagination flow. The results are dazzling and sparkly and you will be able to see them in person at our Arts Fest on May 19th at 4pm. The kids are excited to share their work with you!

We will start on our last and 3rd unit of the year: Sculpture - creative and unusual clay vessels

This month, we worked on expanding numbers up to one million and practiced multiplying and dividing larger numbers.

We also focused on written multiplication without carrying (Multiplikation ohne Übertrag). ✏️

➡️ Coming up:
• Written multiplication with carrying
• Strengthening division strategies
• Solving real-world math problems 🚀

This month, we continued reading our class novel Lolly Blu and wrote our own creative acrostic poems inspired by the story. ✍️

We also learned how to summarize chapters and practiced identifying the most important information in a text.

In grammar, we prepared for and completed our grammar test focusing on the spelling rules for ck, tz, and ß, as well as the FRESCH strategies Verlängern and Ableiten. 📝

Another highlight was our job presentations! Students shared exciting information about different careers, and we even had special guests visit our class to talk about their professions and answer questions. 👩‍⚕️👨‍🍳👩‍💻✨

➡️ Coming up:
• Continuing our class novel Lolly Blu 📖
• Focusing on neat handwriting ✍️
• Free writing in German to encourage creativity and confidence 📝✨

• Learned about the U.S. Constitution and how it organizes the government.

• Explored the Bill of Rights, including why it was created and how it protects people’s freedoms.

• Studied the three branches of government and the role of each branch.

• Learned about checks and balances and how they keep power fair and balanced.

Next month we will...

• Compare the federal, state, and local governments and discuss the role of local leaders like mayors.

• Imagine ourselves as mayor and create our own “movement” to improve our city or community, encouraging students to think about how government can solve real-world problems.

Students explored the states of matter, the water cycle, and the topic of air through a variety of experiments and discussions. They investigated what air actually is and also learned about air pollution and its effects on the environment.

We also began our final unit of the year on Ancient Egypt. Students were introduced to the origins of Ancient Egypt, the role of the pharaohs, daily life, and the different professions people had during that time. In the coming weeks, students will continue discovering many more exciting aspects of Ancient Egyptian civilization while preparing for a group poster project. Soon, groups will be formed and students will begin creating informative posters to present their learning collaboratively.

Coming Soon:
Students will apply what they have learned by designing and building their own Rube Goldberg machine machines using a series of energy transfers and chain reactions.

• Learned about the poetry forms haiku and limerick.

• Practiced using and understanding figurative language like similes, metaphors, and personification.

• Began planning and writing our final projects.

• Dug in to adding evidence to opinions in preparation for writing literary essays

Next month we will...

• Edit drafts of our final project and get feedback from the class.

• Start our class novel: Because of Winn-Dixie

· Worked with frisbee games and developed them using the “genetic concept” approach, where students adapted and modified games through trial, variation, and improvement.
· Created our own frisbee game versions with self-designed rules and learned specific throwing and catching techniques.
· Intensified our dodgeball (Völkerball) unit, focusing on tactics, teamwork, and game awareness.
· Prepared for and participated in activities connected to the Fun Run, focusing on endurance and group motivation.

Coming soon
· Transition into the topic of running and endurance.
· Improve stamina, pacing, and long-distance running ability.
· Explore different running forms and training methods.
· Build fitness through structured running activities and challenges.

The students have been so creative to come up with new ideas and to think "outside of the box". They utilized the 3S technique (score, slip, smooth) to safely attache clay to clay and added details and textures by carving and adding.

We had a great art year together and it was so fun working with your children. I can't wait to see everyone back this fall.

Please remind your children to pick up the art portfolios from their class teacher and then happy holidays to you all!!

• Compared the federal, state, and local governments and discussed the role of local leaders like mayors.

• Imagined ourselves as mayor and created our own “movement” to improve our city or community, encouraging students to think about how the government can solve real-world problems.

• Learned about Westward Expansion and its effects on the growth of the United States.

• Worked in teams to debate the pros and cons of westward expansion from the lens of a settler, Native American child, farmer, merchant, and canal worker.

• Learned about the California Gold Rush and how it supported westward expansion.

One topic that captured everyone's interest was the food people ate in Ancient Egypt. During one of our final lessons of the school year, students had the opportunity to experience this aspect of history firsthand by preparing flatbread from scratch. They then enjoyed it with honey and grapes, just as people in Ancient Egypt might have done thousands of years ago. This hands-on activity was a wonderful way to bring history to life and conclude our Sachkunde lessons for the year.

We also continued our exciting profession presentations. Many parents and other adults visited our classroom to share insights about their careers. The students greatly enjoyed learning about a variety of professions and asking thoughtful questions. Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate and make these experiences so meaningful!

As we approach the end of 4th grade, we have also spent time reflecting on everything we have learned and accomplished this year. The students have worked hard, grown academically and personally, and are ready for the exciting transition to 5th grade.

We also explored cube buildings (Würfelgebäude) and building plans (Baupläne). Students practiced visualizing three-dimensional structures, interpreting building plans, and creating their own constructions. These activities helped develop their spatial reasoning and problem-solving skills.

In addition, we focused on word problems (Sachaufgaben) and real-world math situations. Students learned to identify relevant information, choose appropriate strategies, and explain their mathematical thinking. We also worked with money, practicing calculations involving purchases, change, and solving practical everyday problems.

We're wrapping up our last Math lessons in German and are ready to move to 5th grade where math will be completely in English.

• Worked hard editing our final writing projects.

• Started learning about puberty, including imagining how we'd look when we're older.

• Learned about theme and started discussing how to find theme by analyzing plot and character changes.