By Marisa Iati, Staff Writer
MONROE — Fourth-grade students at Oak Tree Elementary School learned through their stomachs Monday when they created a 4-foot-long New Jersey-themed cake to culminate their unit on the state.
Carol Pignataro, who teaches with Selime Kaufman, said all five fourth-grade classes studied New Jersey and baked similar cakes.
”We actually study New Jersey all year, and this is the culmination of everything that we’ve learned,” Ms. Kaufman said. “New Jersey is part of the fourth-grade curriculum. Third grade, they just learn about Monroe Township so they progress to New Jersey.”
Ms. Kaufman said she and Ms. Pignataro assigned a PowerPoint presentation on a specific county to each of their students. The students presented these projects to their classmates and parents Friday.
”They come up with as much information as they can possibly come up with,” Ms. Kaufman said. “When they finally finish, they do a huge presentation for the parents. Then we talk about, if we made a cake, what candies would represent some of the areas of New Jersey. They’re also encouraged to go with their families to visit the counties.”
The students used M&M’s and Skittles to represent Jersey tomatoes, sugar with blue food coloring to represent the seashore, root beer barrel candies to represent oil refineries and Hershey’s Kisses and Sno-Caps to represent mountains, Ms. Kaufman said.
”We helped join together the county cake as a big puzzle,” said student Sarina Thapar, whose PowerPoint presentation focused on Gloucester County.
Ms. Kaufman said her class began their chronological study of New Jersey by learning about Christopher Columbus’s voyage to North America. The class studied various aspects of the state, including its historical background and landforms.
Student Nithin Rajesh learned various facts about the counties.
”I learned that Cape May is very famous for the lighthouse,” he said. “Camden has the Camden Aquarium. Morris is famous for its trees. Passaic has the beautiful waterfalls.”
Abir Ahsan, another student, said he learned New Jersey is home to part of the Appalachian mountain range.
”I like Sussex the best because it has the highest piece of New Jersey, which is called High Point,” he said.
During Monday’s celebration, students filled out workbooks called “On the Go in New Jersey” and told the class what they learned from the PowerPoint presentations and cake creation.
One student told the class creating the cake taught him “New Jersey is yummy.”
Ms. Kaufman said fourth-grade classes have done the cake project for more than 14 years.
”Oak Tree is only 3 years old, but we were at Brookside (Elementary School) originally,” she said.
Ms. Kaufman added the project leaves a mark on the students.
”It kind of stays with them, and that’s mainly why we do it,” she said. “When you have something like this, more hands-on of an experience, you learn more, and it stays with you.”
