FOURTH GRADERS HOST ANNUAL IMMIGRATION FESTIVAL AT GAINFIELD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

  For six weeks, the Gainfield Elementary School fourth-grade students have been preparing for their annual Immigration Festival by researching family history, writing immigrant diaries, and cooking authentic foods.

  Firmly based in the language arts and social studies curricula, the Immigration Festival is a multi-faceted project. A major portion of the festival features the students doing a “story telling”, using a diary written by the children in the voice of an immigrant relative. The students read selections from their diaries to an audience made up of family members and friends.

  The project encompasses every step of the writing process, including editing and revising their diary. The students create their own back page and cover for the diary, and tea-stain the pages at home with their family.

  For the festival, the boys and girls chose costumes, authentic to their home country while being sensitive to the fact that were pretending to be young immigrants from the late 19th century and early 20th century.

  To prepare for the festival, some students completed family trees and learned about those family members who arrived at Ellis Island during the fifty-year span of 1870 to 1920.

  "The Immigration Festival takes research into a child's heritage a step beyond the construction of a family tree. In addition to story-telling with their immigration diary, some students sang a native song or played a song from their homeland on a musical instrument," said teacher Mrs. Sarah Walkup. "Gainfield Elementary School students have been participating in the Immigration Festival for nearly ten years and each year, the festival is a chance for students to share a unique story from their family history.”