Week 21

 Hello everyone, this is the last week of the semester so there is actually no vocabulary words and no story.

We can use this time to review stories, finish any remaining writing, and also to have a class party.

Reminder: We do have winter homework which is to write and draw comics on an A3 sized poster based on what happens during students' experiences over the winter break and Lunar New Year holidays.

As for homework, we only have the Savvas Online Homework this week.

I'll provide summaries of the stories from this half of the semester for students and parents to refer to prior to doing review activities.

Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors?

The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell

This story is a biography that covers the life of Elizabeth Blackwell

The setting of the story is America in the 1800s.

The story states that jobs were limited for women in the 1830s even in America.

Those who weren't wives, mothers, or maids were usually working as teachers or seamstresses.

At that time, a woman being a doctor wasn't an option.

However, Elizabeth wasn't a girl who walked away from a challenge.

She even carried her brother over her head until their fight stopped.

(By the way, Henry Blackwell, her brother, did a lot to help Elizabeth chase her dream of becoming a doctor, but this isn't written in our story. You can read about him here- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Browne_Blackwell )

Even when Elizabeth was a child, she tried to make herself stronger by sleeping on floors and climbing up roofs.

When she was young, she didn't even want to see a doctor, she just walked outside or hid in the closest until she felt better.

It was one of her friends, Mary Donaldson, who believed that she could be a doctor when she told Elizabeth that she would prefer that a woman doctor would examine her.

She didn't like the idea at first, but she thought about it in her sewing circles or sewing clubs and it started to sound better and better to her.

She thought about it when having tea with other women as well, and even started to dream about becoming a doctor.

However, the men that she asked has mixed opinions.

Some were supportive, but some didn't think that women were strong or smart enough.

(Her brother, Henry, was actually the most supportive and introduced people to Elizabeth that could help her, but this isn't in our story.)

She was laughed at by some of the people who she shared her dream with, both men and women.

At that time, she was a teacher and applied to work at some medical schools, but she kept getting the same answer back.

NO, NO, NO, NO, and NO!

Twenty-eight rejection letters in all.

She got one acceptance letter for Geneva Medical School in upstate New York.

(Again, her brother Henry's friendship with Dr. Joseph Warrington was the reason they accepted her. Henry introduced the doctor to her sister and Dr. Warrington wrote to his school that she should be accepted. But this is also not in our story.)

After she was accepted, the school's teachers let the students vote on whether or not to accept Elizabeth Blackwell as a new student or not.

The students thought that this was a joke so they voted yes.

Elizabeth studied past midnight many times during her time in medical school.

On January 23, 1849, Elizabeth graduated with the highest grades in the whole class.

One Plastic Bag

Reading Story: 

https://youtu.be/DAkBSU_T638?si=90_msGCzrTcxSXRt

  This story is a type of biography, and it follows the main character Isatour Ceesay and her friends as they try to make the Gambia more beautiful.

Her village in Njau, Gambia is getting inundated with lots of plastic bags and other types of plastic trash.

Her nation and village start to feel ugly to her, but she needs bags to put her fruits inside after her basket is broken.

Grandmother Mbombeh lives in a kitchen hut with her goats.

Grandmother serves some spicy rice and fish to Isatou.

She tells Grandmother Mbombeh about her broken basket and about the plastic bag she found.

She notices that more and more people in her village are starting to use plastic bags.

And they are also throwing them on the ground.

Her village is starting to get even more ugly, and she finds out that her grandmother's goats have been eating plastic bags.

The goats eat the plastic bags and twist their insides so they cannot survive.

Now, there is a pile of garbage in the village and mosquitos swarm near dirty pools of water.

Isatou's friend Fatim has the idea to wash the plastic bags with omo soap.

Isatou's sister decides to crochet the plastic bags into purses, and teaches Isatou how to do it.

Now, they ask their friends from the village to join them, and Isatou's friends agree.

They cut the bags and roll them into spools of plastic thread.

Afterwards, they crochet them into purses.

While others mocked these women as being dirty, they successfully made many purses.

Soon, many people in the village decide to buy these purses and put coins inside.

The pile of rubbish keeps getting smaller and smaller, and her village is more beautiful now.

Kids Can Be Big Helpers Story Summary

Story: https://youtu.be/Jz3NtVBXb0Y?si=HeQVdr9ckXY4ddOg

This story is a persuasive text which is a reading which gets readers to understand and respect the author's viewpoint.

There is no main character in this story, and the main setting is in the USA but the theme can be applicable to children all over the world.

In the text, it states that there are more than 320 million people living in the United States of America.

How can so many people get along?

They need to help each other in many ways, and many of these helpers are kids and students.

Family members help each other carry groceries or do the dishes.

At school, students help teachers clean up.

Students also help their classmates with school work when they can.

Some helpers are volunteers who do jobs without pay.

Volunteers can do many jobs like reading to children, raising money for causes, cleaning up litter outside, collecting books and clothing for people in need, and helping elders in various ways.

Helping others can make someone into a good citizen.

Good citizens pay attention to issues in their community like making sure poorer people have enough food to eat.

When people volunteer, they learn to be responsible and trustworthy.

They also learn a lot of useful skills when they volunteer.

For example, students volunteering to raise money to help animals need to learn how to raise money.

They have to think up some ideas like starting a pet fair or some type of event.

In order to be successful, they need to talk to others, send messages on social media, organize things, and work with others.

Those are all important skills for kids to learn.

Helping others can make people feel good about themselves which makes helpers healthier and more successful.

People can often make new friends when they volunteer.

Many families volunteer in shelters where people live and receive help.

Volunteers can help shelters by serving food or playing games with the people in the shelter.

Helpers can also help their communities by cleaning up and being good citizens.

Introducing Landforms Summary

Story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iScEVxalbNA

This story is an informational text, and there are no characters in this reading as it is about the geology of various areas of the Earth. (Terra)

It has various settings as it covers several different continents which include a lot of different types of environments and landforms like forests, deserts, oceans, cliffs, coasts, lakes, mountains, valleys, plains, mesas, canyons, and volcanoes. 

The reading starts out by introducing the seven continents in this order: North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, Oceania, and Antarctica. 

Yes, seven, because Australia and Oceania are often combined together to make a single continent.

Oceans surround the seven continents on various sides.

Next, landforms are introduced as different shapes of land on Earth.

Some landforms are flat and others are steep.

Landforms are shaped by wind, fire, water, and ice.

They can also be shaped or influenced by the movement of the Earth as well as actions of people or animals.

One type of landform is coasts. It is the edge of the land where it meets the ocean.

However, coasts can vary as some coasts have rocky cliffs, and others have beaches.

Rivers and lakes are bodies of water that are on continents.

Rivers are long streams of water, and lakes are bodies of water that have land all around them.

The water found in rivers and lakes is usually fresh water with no salt.

Many lakes form from melting glaciers.

The water in lakes often comes mainly from rivers and streams flowing into them or from rain.

A mountain is a very high area of rocky land.

It has steep sides and is narrow at the top.

Mountains that are small and not steep are called hills.

A group of mountains is called a mountain range.

Valleys, however, are low landforms that are between two or more mountains.

Some valleys have a curved U-shape, and other valleys have a steep V-shape.

Another major landform are the plains.

Plains are huge areas of nearly flat land, and some plains are covered by forests.

Other plains are covered mostly by grasses and flowers with a few trees.

Those plains are called grasslands or prairies, and some people start farms and grow crops there.

Deserts are dry areas that get very little rain, but there are hot deserts and cold deserts.

In the story, we see examples of hot deserts with huge sand dunes and an oasis or two where some trees can grow.

In hot deserts, people can see mesas which are hills and mountains with flat tops and steep sides.

Canyons are landforms that are also found in dry areas and are much deeper than the land around them.

One famous example is the Grand Canyon in Arizona, USA.

Over time, the rivers change the shapes of the canyons.

A volcano is an opening in the Earth's surface which might shoot lava onto the Earth.

However, some volcanoes are dormant and will be unlikely to erupt or explode hot lava.

Lava can build up and make the volcano larger and more like a mountain.

How Water Shapes the Earth

The Earth is always changing. Some changes happen quickly, but some changes take place slowly over time.

Water shapes the Earth slowly. It wears away rocks and soil to other places.

Rivers and streams flow over land.

The Colorado River carved the Grand Canyon about 5 million years ago.

Moving water is very powerful.

Ocean waves crash into the land over and over again.

This shapes the coastline and makes cliffs.

Also, a waterfall forms where a river or stream flows quickly over a high ledge of hard rock.

Waterfalls move rock and soil into a pool below.

Glaciers are large pieces of frozen water that move slowly over the land.

They drag pieces of rock and soil along with them as they move.

They can change the shapes of mountains and the land around them.

Water changes the land quickly during natural disasters such as floods, hurricanes, and tsunamis.

Floods destroy farmland by washing away the topsoil that helps plants grow.

Hurricanes and tsunamis can ruin coastal cities and landforms.

How Earthquakes Shape the Earth

The Earth is always changing. Some changes happen quickly.

Many of the most Earth-shattering changes are made by earthquakes.

Earthquakes can break apart the ground.

People can feel the ground moving underneath them.

The shaking ground from an earthquake can cause a great amount of damage.

It can make houses fall down or roads crack open.

Floods can also be caused by earthquakes.

The strongest earthquakes can move large areas of land.

Some of these strong earthquakes move land deep under water.

This pushes water up to make giant waves.

These giant waves are called tsunamis.

Small earthquakes may happen days or even weeks after an earthquake.

They are called aftershocks.

Aftershocks often add to the damage caused by the first earthquake.

Week 21	Homework 回家功課
Monday January 19th	1. Savvas Online Homework: Reading 1
Tuesday January 20th	1. Savvas Online Homework: Reading 2
Wednesday January 21st	1. Savvas Online Homework: Reading Comprehension
Thursday January 22nd	1. No Homework
Friday January 23rd	1. No Homework