Week 4

Thank you to everyone for making Summer School 2011 such a great success!  I've just come back from a brief vacation and am just now uploading all the pictures from Week 4 to our flickr account.  It is free to download and save the pictures, so please feel free!


Addy Walker was born into slavery, but after her family is torn apart, she and her mother risk a daring escape to freedom!  Students learned about slavery, the civil war, and the Underground Railroad.  On that Wednesday, we celebrated Addy's freedom with a small party, enjoying strawberry shortcake and a tangy iced tea and playing a beanbag game.  The rest of the week was spent with Rebecca Rubin in turn of the century New York.  Rebecca dreamed of becoming an actress.  Her family struggled to raise money to bring her relatives from Russia to the United States.  We learned about Rebecca's Jewish heritage, playing dreidel, learning about the menorrah, bar mitzvahs, and, thanks to the Serwin family, sampling some challah bread.  The week ended with a movie party, with a concessions stand of popcorn and candy, and featuring a movie about Samantha.


In Book Cooks, we found out how long it takes to bake a thunder cake, and also how to make a rich and chocolately buttercream frosting.  As it turns out, though, snozzcumbers taste a lot like fish.  Although, in a sandwich, they aren't too bad.  Unlike Stellaluna, we didn't have to eat any disgusting bugs, just juicy mangos and blueberries in a ginger syrup!  Did you know that a little demon lives inside each popcorn kernel?  He gets pretty angry when you heat up his house, though.  Finally, we watched the Yooks and Zooks duke it out over whether the bread should be butter side up, or butter side down. 

Have a great school year and I hope to see some of you next summer!!!

Miss Cong