4th Grade Distance Learning Menu

Reading

Read 30 minutes a day. Choose at least two activities below to complete using one of the informational texts provided.

**Informational**

Identify at least two text features in the article and explain how they help you understand the article.

Write a summary of the article. Remember to include the central idea and the most

important facts only.

What was the author’s purpose for writing this

article? Remember to use a vivid verb (explain, list,

compare/contrast, etc.) and support your answer with

text evidence.

Find at least two words in the text that you don’t know. Use context clues to help you

figure out what they mean. Use a dictionary (print or

digital) to check if you were right. Write a sentence using

each word.

What type of text structure was used in the story?

Examples: Problem/Solution, Sequential, Cause/Effect,

Compare/Contrast and Descriptive text structure.

Provide text evidence to support your answer.

Watch the Flocabulary video about text structure if you

need help. www.flocabulary.com/join-

class Class code: NZ9P3W

Identify the central idea and supporting details for the

article you read. You can use the graphic organizer

provided or draw your own.

Writing and Grammar This week, you will be writing an informational text. Remember that an informational text should have an introduction with a central idea, paragraphs that support your

central idea, and a conclusion (think of your “Big I”.)

Complete 1 of the boxes below during the week. Writing: Write about a job you would like to have when you grow up. Explain why you chose

this job.

Grammar: Circle the SUBJECT and underline the PREDICATE in three sentences.

Watch Flocabulary video if you need help.

www.flocabulary.com/join-class Class code: NZ9P3W

Writing: Write about an animal you would choose for a class pet. Explain why you

chose this animal.

Grammar: Circle the SUBJECT and underline the PREDICATE in three

sentences.

Watch Flocabulary video if you need help. www.flocabulary.com/join-class

Class code: NZ9P3W

years, Londoners have been dumping human waste into the Thames [temz], the great river that rushes through the city. Now, London is suffering the hottest summer in recent history. The steaming heat is cooking the filthy river into a bubbling, foul-smelling stew. Newspapers are calling this situation “The Great Stink.”

The problem isn’t merely gross. It’s also deadly. Over the past 50 years, tens of thousands of people have died from drinking the polluted water of the Thames River. Can the Great Stink force the city to clean up the river before thousands more are sickened?

The Problem of PoopFor as long as humans have walked the

earth, figuring out what to do with human ILLU

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BY

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NALet’s journey to the city of London, England,

in the summer of 1858. Horse-drawn carriages clip-clop through the streets. Ladies wearing giant, tentlike skirts glide past shop windows. Kids stand on street corners, selling newspapers and cigars and fried fish.

But you don’t notice any of that. All you can think about is the overpowering, stomach-turning, eye-watering smell of poop.

As you will soon discover, the entire city is caught in the grip of a stinky crisis. For

10 S T O R Y W O R K S

Synthesizing As you read these articles, think about how big problems can spark the creation of new inventions.

UPCLOSE

Paired Texts

In 1858, London was caught in the grip of a deadly health crisis: Its largest river was overflowing with poop.

By Allison Friedman

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into the Thames, to prevent flooding.

To make matters worse, a dazzling new invention was becoming increasingly popular: the flush toilet. Waste could now be washed away as if by magic with the pull of a chain. But toilets used a lot of water, so

they caused the cesspools to overflow. To avoid a goopy mess, people began

connecting their toilets directly to the sewers—and

therefore to the river. Overloaded with human waste,

the Thames grew thick, brown, and foul. Over time, the smell became a stench, and the stench became unbearable. And then, in the scorching summer of

1858, it became a crisis.

A Whiff on the WindLondoners back then were no strangers

to filth. Soot from factories blackened the air. Mountains of dung from thousands of horses choked the streets. Families crammed into tiny apartments thick with the smell of sweat. And

everywhere there was garbage: broken dishes, moldy food, animal bones.

waste has been one of our greatest challenges. In ancient South Asian cities, clay pipes and brick channels carried waste away from homes. An intricate web of stone sewers lay underneath the ancient city of Rome to take waste out of the city.

Until the early 1800s, London’s system for dealing with waste was fairly simple. Most homes had a bathroom. People did their business on a wooden box with a hole that sat above an underground pit called a cesspool. These cesspools were usually 6 feet deep and 4 feet wide. When full, a “night soil man” would shovel out the waste and sell it to farmers to use as fertilizer. (Poop was known as night soil because it was carted away in the middle of the night, when the powerful odor wouldn’t disturb people.)

But in the 19th-century, London—and all of England—was changing. Thousands were leaving their farms to work at factories in cities. Between 1800 and 1850, London’s population more than doubled. By the middle of the century, London was the biggest city in the world, with 2 million people.

Soon, there was too much night soil to collect and not enough farmers to buy it. More and more people were forced to empty their cesspools into the city’s creaky old sewers. But the sewers were never designed for human waste—they were built to drain rainwater

S T O R Y W O R K S . S C H O L A S T I C . C O M • M A Y / J U N E 2 0 2 0 11

A River of Death This cartoon drawn during the Great Stink

captures the public’s fear of cholera. It depicts the Thames as the River Styx. In Greek mythology, the Styx divided the world of the living from the

world of the dead.

A Dazzling WonderWhen London’s new sewer system opened in

1865, it was considered a technological marvel. It was designed to prevent human waste

from flowing into the Thames River.

These fancy toilets were all the rage in 19th-century London. Having one showed you were wealthy and

modern.London’s new

sewers had roughly 13,000 miles of pipes.

That’s about the distance from

the North Pole to the South Pole!

Still, the Great Stink of 1858 was an odor more putrid than the city had ever experienced. Grown men and women fainted in the streets. People miles away threw up after catching a whiff on the wind. Government leaders, who worked in a building beside the Thames, fled with tears streaming from their eyes.

Londoners weren’t just disgusted by the stink—they were terrified. At the time, it was widely believed that diseases spread by miasma: dirty, smelly air. And the most feared disease of all? Cholera [KAH-ler-uh], a violent stomach sickness that could kill a person within 24 hours. London had already suffered three major cholera epidemics. More than 30,000 people had died. Londoners worried that the Great Stink would unleash a new wave of death across the city.

What few people in 1858 understood was that it wasn’t the smell of the river that was deadly; it was the water. Poop is crawling with

microscopic germs that can cause dozens of diseases, including cholera. The poop-filled Thames was London’s main source of drinking water. People had been gulping down poison.

Something Had to Be DoneEven if government leaders didn’t understand

exactly why the Great Stink was dangerous, they knew something had to be done—fast. With handkerchiefs pressed to their noses, they quickly passed a law ordering the construction of a new sewer system. The new sewers would run underground alongside the river rather than into it, carrying waste out past the city and away from where people lived.

It took thousands of workers, 318 million bricks, 670,000 cubic meters of concrete, and what would be $6 billion in today’s money to construct London’s new sewer system. The system officially opened in 1865.

Soon, the Thames was poop-free once again.

A New CrisisLondon’s new sewer system inspired similar

building projects in cities around the world, including cities in the U.S., like New York. Many parts of those systems are still being used today, more than a century later. Over the years, however, these antique sewers have started to fall apart. Since the 1800s, the population of many cities has continued to multiply. Climate change has triggered heavier storms that overload pipes with rainwater.

Under these pressures, the original sewers—once a modern wonder—have begun to leak, break, clog, and overflow. In some places, waste

has been oozing into the drinking water supply.

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12 S T O R Y W O R K S

Removing fatbergs from clogged

sewers takes an enormous amount of time and millions of dollars. One fatberg that was removed in

London stretched three city blocks and weighed more than 19 elephants.

Sewer MonstersThis hunk of yuck is called a fatberg. Fatbergs are a

problem in cities with older sewer systems. When cooking oil and grease are poured down the drain, they end up in

sewers, where they harden into fat. These sticky blobs trap all kinds of stuff: baby wipes, cotton balls, food scraps. This stuff should be recycled or placed in the trash, not flushed. If a fatberg gets big enough, it clogs pipes and

causes sewage to overflow.

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S T O R Y W O R K S . S C H O L A S T I C . C O M • M A Y / J U N E 2 0 2 0 13

Here in the U.S., most of us probably

don’t think much about toilets. We go,

we flush, we wash our hands. But

what if your home didn’t have a toilet?

What if no homes in your town had

one? Where would all that waste go?

Before long, there would be a crisis, just

like there was in London 162 years ago.

Today, 4.5 billion people around the

world do not have a way to get rid of human

waste without harming people or the

environment. It ends up in food and

water sources. Many thousands of

people die every year from diseases

related to unsafe sanitation. Millions

more are sickened.

This problem mainly affects

developing countries, which tend to

have high poverty. Building more toilets and

sewers might seem like a simple solution.

But sewer systems require a lot of money to

build and water to operate. Many developing

countries don’t have enough of either.

The U.S. faces sanitation challenges

too. Some aging sewers are crumbling

from the strain of too many people using

them.

Could one of these innovative waterless

toilets be the solution to today’s sanitation

challenges?

WORM TOILETThe Tiger Toilet breaks down waste

with worms. Beneath the toilet, and out of view from users, lives a cluster of tiger worms. These critters eat organic waste—including poop. As the worms digest waste, harmful germs are removed. In the end, all that’s left is a mix of water, carbon

dioxide, and some harmless worm poop that can be used as fertilizer.

SELF-POWERING TOILETThe Nano Membrane toilet gets rid of

waste by burning it. When you close the lid, waste drops into a pan. From there, liquid waste—aka urine—is filtered into clean water that can be used for watering plants

but not for drinking. Any solid waste—aka poop—is burned into ash. The best part? The whole process produces enough electricity to power the toilet, as well as other, small devices like, say, your smartphone.

COMPOSTING TOILETOther new toilets turn waste into

fertilizer by using heat. Here’s how it works: Human waste is kept in a container attached to the toilet. The temperature

inside the container is very high. This high heat, along with oxygen, makes certain bacteria grow—bacteria that naturally break down waste over time. Eventually, what’s left can be used as fertilizer in gardens and backyards. But be careful: Not all composting toilets produce fertilizer that is safe to use for growing food.

These toilets could help solve one of the world’s most serious problems:how to safely get rid of human waste. by Mackenzie Carro

Toilets Future of the

INFORMATIONAL TEXT

There is a saying that goes “necessity is the mother of invention.” It means that people invent ways to solve a problem when there is a very strong need for it. In a short essay, explain how this saying applies to the Great Stink and today’s sanitation problems.

MAKE A CONNECTION!

Paired Texts

16 S T O R Y W O R K S

An illness took away Ariah’s

hair—and her confidence.

Here’s how she found it again.

By Allison Friedman

aAriah relaxing at home with her dogs, Chanel and Gucci

My Life Without

S T O RY W O R K S . S C H O L A S T I C . C O M • M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 9 17

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In many ways, Ariah Deming is like other fourth-graders. She loves the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. She shows a mouthful of braces when she

smiles (which is often). She likes to play with her dogs. She takes care of her baby sister.

But there is one thing that makes Ariah [uh-RYE-uh] stand out: She doesn’t have any hair.

Ariah has alopecia areata. This disease prevents her hair from growing properly. Living with alopecia [al-oh-PEE-shuh] has not been easy. But the 11-year-old from Colorado has learned to like her difference. Today, she sees it as a kind of superpower.

“It makes me feel special, because I’m out of the ordinary,” she says.

Whispers and StaresAbout 6.8 million Americans have

alopecia. Scientists aren’t sure what causes the condition, but they know it’s partly genetic. Alopecia can be treated in different ways, and it sometimes goes away on its own. But there is no cure.

People with alopecia don’t feel sick. But they can suffer emotionally. Ariah has had alopecia since she was a baby. “She has been stared at her whole life,” her mom says. “And people aren’t always kind.” At school, other kids would whisper behind Ariah’s back and make cruel comments. She tried to ignore the bullying. But it was hard.

About three years ago, Ariah and her family learned about a charity called Locks of Love. The group makes high-tech wigs

called hair prostheses for kids who have lost their hair because of an illness or injury. The prostheses are made with real hair donated by people across the country.

To School Without HairMadonna Coffman is the president of

Locks of Love. She knows how hard hair loss can be: Both she and her daughter have had alopecia. “Kids don’t like to go to school with the wrong jeans or the wrong backpack,” Coffman says. “You can imagine how difficult it is to go to school without hair.” She helped start Locks of Love to bring high-quality hairpieces (which can cost as much as $6,000) to kids whose families can’t afford them.

Locks of Love prostheses are different from regular wigs: They’re specially designed and fitted to each child. The charity sent Ariah a kit to make a mold of her head. The mold was used to create a snug, skin-colored cap. Nearly 150,000 strands of real hair (about 10 ponytails’ worth) were then attached to the

Compare and Contrast As you read, think about how the gift of hair affects both the givers and the receivers.

UPCLOSE

Ariah, wearing her hairpiece, practices the viola.

cap by hand. The process took about five months.

Ariah found it hard to wait. “I just wanted it so badly!” she says.

Joy and ReliefWhen Ariah’s hairpiece came in the

mail, she tried it on. The silky, strawberry-blond hair came down to her shoulders, just like she had requested. Ariah was filled with joy—and relief. “I didn’t even have words,” she says. “I was so excited. I knew I’d be much more comfortable at school.”

Because Locks of Love hairpieces are carefully fitted, kids don’t have to worry that they’ll fall off. Wearing them, kids can play sports. They can have sleepovers. They can ride roller coasters. Over time, many kids develop more confidence and self-esteem. Some feel so good about themselves that they stop wearing their hairpiece. They feel fine just the way they are.

“Good to Be Different”That’s what happened to Ariah.

Since getting her prosthesis, she’s started going to a new school. She has made close friends. “I just feel more confident,” she says. And so she has stopped wearing the hairpiece to school every day. Having the option to look like other kids has helped her realize that she likes being different.

People still stare at her on the street. But she says that people who are curious about her bare head can just ask. “Ariah is so friendly and patient,” her mom says. “She always takes time to educate anyone who’s willing to listen.”

Today, Ariah saves her hairpiece for special occasions or days when she just feels like blending in. Most of the time, she is happy to stand out. “It’s good to be different from everyone else in the crowd,” she says. n ST

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P riscilla Ramirez sat in a chair at the hair salon. Her long, dark braid hung down her back. She fidgeted nervously. As the hairstylist raised her scissors, Priscilla squeezed the

arms of the chair.Snip. Snip. Snip.Priscilla’s 10-inch-long braid fell into the

stylist’s hands.Priscilla wasn’t just getting a haircut. She

was helping another person. She planned to donate her hair to Locks of Love, a group

that makes hairpieces for kids with hair

loss.“I hadn’t

cut my hair before, so it was scary and nerve-

racking!” says the 9-year-old.

“But I felt like I was doing the right thing for other kids.”

Tears of JoyPriscilla’s mom

donated her own hair 20 years ago.

INFORMATIONAL TEXT

Every year, hundreds of kids donate their hair to Locks of Love. Meet some hair champions.

“I decided to donate my hair because I can always grow it

back, and some people can’t.”Lauren Lee, Age 9

Princeton, NJ

Haircuts for Hope

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S T O RY W O R K S . S C H O L A S T I C . C O M • M AY / J U N E 2 0 1 9 19

Write an imaginary dialogue between someone who received a hairpiece from Locks of Love and someone who donated hair to the charity. What could they share with each other about their experiences? Use details from the articles.

WHAT’S THE CONNECTION?FIND AN ACTIVITY

SHEET ONLINE!

That’s where Priscilla got the idea. Her mom explained that illnesses like cancer can cause hair loss. “I felt really sad that that would happen,” Priscilla said. “I wanted to help.”

But it wasn’t an easy choice.

Priscilla loved her hair. It fell all the way to her

waist. “Our

Mexican heritage is about having long hair,” her mom says.

So that day at the salon, Priscilla was both excited and

nervous. When the stylist placed the cut-off braid in her hands, Priscilla held it up proudly in front of her mom’s camera. Tears ran down her face, but she smiled. “I felt sad, but also really happy that I did something good for other kids,” she says. “They were tears of joy.”

Kids Helping KidsEvery week, Locks of Love gets thousands

of ponytail donations. Many celebrities,

such as snowboarder Shaun White, have donated. Talk show hosts have had their hair chopped off on live TV. Hair salons, malls, schools, and even prisons hold yearly “Cut-a-Thons.” The charity receives enough hair to make about 400 hairpieces each year.

Most of the donations come from kids like Priscilla, who want to help other kids.

“I feel really happy and proud that I donated,” Priscilla says. In fact, she’s growing her hair out so she can do it again. n

INFORMATIONAL TEXT Priscilla Ramirez

“I knew there were kids out

there who needed my hair

more than I did.”Andrew Hand, Age 13

Woodstock, GA

“I wanted to make other kids

happy.”Thomas Moore,

Age 10Bowie, MD

Haircuts for Hope

Central Idea

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