PS/IS 686 | Brooklyn, NY

Gotham….400 years ago

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Dear Families,

Today we read an eyewitness account from a Dutch Explorer describing Manhattan island. Here is some of what we read today.  We stopped often to envision what it might have looked like.

“Travelers spoke of vast meadows of grass “as high as a man’s middle”

“..forests with towering stands of walnut, cedar, chestnut, maple, and oak.”

“Orchards bore apples of incomparable sweetness..”

 “…pears larger than a fist.”
 “Every spring the hills and fields were dyed red with ripening strawberries.”
 
“So many birds filled the woods “that men can scarcely go through them for the whistling, the noise, and the chattering.” “
 
“Boats crossing the bay were escorted by schools of playful whales, seals, and porpoises.”

 “Twelve-inch oysters and six-foot lobsters crowded offshore waters, and so many fish thrived in streams and ponds that they could be taken by hand.”
Adrien Van der Donck’s Comment about the land and its ecology.  
“There are some persons who imagine that the animals of the country will be destroyed in time,” mused Van der Donck, “but this is an unnecessary anxiety.” 
We spoke about the change from an island teeming with life to one of filled with concrete.  Many agreed that we must protect our fragile ecosystem.  
Housekeeping
  • Homework this week will be as usual, 2 writer’s NB entries as well as 2 reading responses.
The first reading response will be the ReadWorks article about, “Protecting the Wetlands.”  Please make sure that they are responding to the open ended questions in paragraph form.  I provided feedback from last week’s article directly on ReadWorks.
Make sure you review it before they complete this week’s article.  The second reading response should be completed in their reading response section of their Humanities notebook.  They were given today an example of a reading response that I typed up for them in their binder.
  • School Loop is up and running.  I will begin putting in HW assignments into it starting next week.
  • I handed back graded spelling tests this morning to the entire fourth grade.
  • Thank you for bringing in the binders today.  We set them up with tabs.  If your child did not have one please purchase one as soon as you can.  Tabs should be labelled, reading, writing, SS and quizzes.

All the best,

Christy

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