Wow! It’s hard to believe that we’re in April and there’s only a little bit of school left. Where does the time go? One way that Fourth Graders are spending their time in the classroom is working on their Plymouth City Project.
Plymouth City is a legacy project, meaning that each class adds something to it each year. Last year, the class founded the town of Plymouth City, and each of the students added either a business or some sort of public service (e.g. a bakery, the police department). This year’s group must choose something different to add to the town, as will next year’s class and the class after that. The students must think about why their business or service is good for the community in multiple ways, including why it’s good for the environment and why it’s good for the economy. Recently, we had a guest speaker in our room who also happens to be a room parent. He is a business owner, so we thought he would be able to provide lots of good answers.
The class generated questions a week before so that he had time to review them and provide answers that were kid-friendly. I was so impressed with what they came up with! They were specific, open-ended questions that really allowed our guest to go in-depth with his responses. Fourth Graders took age-appropriate notes in order to apply the knowledge they gained to their own projects. The next step for the group is locate specific resource materials, including a book, a website, and an expert in the field of their business that they can interview. It’s so much fun watching how excited they are to take ownership of their work! They continue to impress and I can’t wait to see what the final product looks like! 
