FOURTH GRADERS HOST IMMIGRATION FESTIVAL AT GAINFIELD ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Students Demonstrate Understanding of the Immigration Experience

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April 5, 2004, Middlebury/Southbury—For six weeks, the Gainfield Elementary School fourth-grade students from Mrs. Sarah Walkup’s and Ms. Rima Zelvis’s classrooms have been preparing for the annual Immigration Festival.

Firmly based in the language arts curriculum, the Immigration Festival is a multi-faceted project. The students have explored their own family tree, researched their ancestral homelands, developed a leaflet for new immigrants in the late 1800s using a PowerPoint software program, and created silhouettes reminiscent of the time period. The fourth-graders created an immigrant diary, which is the students’ most comprehensive writing project of the year. The 10-page narrative is written in the first person in the voice of a young immigrant leaving their country, sailing on a ship, and arriving in America through Ellis Island in New York City.

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 19^th century and early 20^th century. The teachers also chose clothing from their ancestral homeland—Ms. Zelvis wore a colorful skirt from Lithuania and Mrs. Walkup dressed as the Statue of Liberty.

“Everyone in the family helped prepare the children and contributed to this special day,” said Ms. Zelvis as she addressed the dozens of parents, grandparents, and siblings who came to the program. “Exploring your own heritage is a family activity.”

To prepare for the festival, the students read books written about the millions of immigrant children who, with their parents, 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 reading an entry of their immigration diary, the students also sang a native song, gave a cooking demonstration of food from the country, danced, or played a song from their homeland on a musical instrument,” said Mrs. Walkup. “Today truly was a celebration of heritage and learning.”