This week the students will learn about the early explorers of America. Some famous explorers to be discussed include Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, and Henry Hudson. The students will be able to identify explorers and trace the routes of their expeditions. 

Welcome Back

 Welcome back to the second quarter of fourth grade!!! I am looking forward to seeing the students and hearing all about their Fall Break experiences. This week the students will begin reading Invasion from Mars by Henry Koch. This is a fun and engaging play with an interesting history that impacted America in the 1930's. We will discuss the differences between performances and written stories as well as focus on story structure. In addition, the students will also use the 6 Trait writing skill, Ideas, to write a fictional newspaper article.

It was a chilly October 30, 1938, the night before Halloween. By night's end, much of the populace in America was filled with fear and paranoia. Their reason was that the heard on the radio that the country was being invaded by extra-terrestrials from the planet Mars. What they were really hearing was a radio play performed by the Mercury Theater on the Air, directed by Orson Welles, on CBS. It was a radio adaptation of the science fiction novel The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells. The effects of this dramatization showed many things. First, how powerful and influential the electronic media can be. Second, how current conditions in society can foster this type of hysteria. And finally, how these events could present future events in elaborate speculative.