YJS students in Chaverim – 5th grade gathered donations from local vendors and packaged them into individual relief kits. Items included snacks, drinks, and personal items. The students then wrote personal cards reaching out to the victims and attached a card to every package. As our oldest elementary class, our fifth graders represented the rest of their YJS peers and went down to Union Beach, NJ. There, they delivered the packages to Homeless to Independence, an all-volunteer non-profit aimed at assisting and empowering those who are less fortunate. The organization was very grateful to receive them and will, in turn, give these packages of care to families in the surrounding areas who were hardest hit by the storm.  Our students also took time to view some of the destruction wreaked by the hurricane in the beach towns of Keyport and Union Beach. Thank you to Mrs. Fischer for coordinating everything and giving the students this meaningful opportunity!

A major portion of our Social Studies unit in the fourth grade is States and Regions. The first region we explored was our home region, the Northeast. We took an imaginary vacation through the Northeast, learning about the geography, history, economy, and people along the way.

Each student selected a state for which to do an in-depth study.  They completed their research at home and then fastidiously worked in class to write their state reports. They learned about outlining, organizing information into paragraphs based on topic, and varying sentence structure to make their writing more interesting.

Additionally, each student created a state float to accompany their report. The floats were creative and high quality, offering us a unique perspective on each state.

We concluded the unit by sharing our floats and reports with the rest of the school. The fourth graders were so proud of their work and did an excellent job at every step in the process!