Everyone did a great job today! I loved seeing the outstanding sportsmanship from all students!

Today the students got to present their “World Change” projects. They worked very hard for the last 5 weeks, researching endangered animals, oil spills, unhealthy us, or the Arab Spring and then came up with recommendations they felt would help the problem. I’m very proud of every child. I have pictures of most of the children below with their projects. I will be adding a few more tomorrow. I also added pictures to my Reader’s Theater page from last week’s performances.

Kelsey- Unhealthy Us and Renee- Arab Spring

Robin- Endangered Animals

Daniel- Arab Spring

Jonna- Endangered Animals

Chris- Arab Spring

Caitlin- Unhealthy Us

Jakob- Oil Spills

Mina- Oil Spills

Sam and Chris- Arab Spring

Sabrina- Endangered Animals

Ryan- Oil Spills

Matthew- Oil Spills

Kyriakos- Endangered Animals

Zach- Unhealthy Us

Happy Earth Day!

Social Studies/ Language Arts: Researching the Environmental Impacts of Oil Spills

We have started writing the summaries for the different areas in the cycle of change. This has assisted the students in seeing the gaps in their research. The students will continue to research necessary areas this week, as well as, begin the process of writing their research papers with their recommendations.

In Language Arts the children are reading different books written by Roald Dahl. They are Boy, Matilda, Fantastic Mr. Fox, George’s Marvelous Medicine, and BFG. All of the 4th grade classes are mixing up for this book club. I am leading the  book club on Dahl’s autobiography, Boy. During this book club the children need to continue journaling. They can journal about their Roald Dahl book.

New Reading Journal Schedule:

Every child must journal the following nights of the week.

Monday Night

Tuesday Night

Wednesday Night

Thursday Night

And One Night of the Weekend (Friday, Saturday or Sunday)

We continue to research contemporary issues in Social Studies. Please explore the following site to learn more about his project.

The Cycle of Change Research Project

This week we will be finishing up our research and beginning to build the display boards for the exhibit.

In math, the children are working on writing equations, using fractions, that equal one.

Relief!

The class worked really hard the last 2 weeks on their ISAT tests! I’m very proud of everyone! We finished our last test today!

The students have been working on Reader’s Theater this week. There are 4 different groups reading plays. The plays are Dolphin Tale,(Kelsey, Sabrina, Jonna, and Caitlin) and (Robin, Jakob, Mina, Kasey, and Renee) Orpheus & Eurydice,(Sam, Matt, Youngwon, and Kyriakos) and Pigtails and Protest (Daniel, Ryan, Zach, and Chris).

In science yesterday the children demonstrated the reflection of light. Their goal was to figure out a way to shine a beam of light from a flashlight on a toy located on the opposite side of a folder using one mirror.  Today the children demonstrated refraction of light by catching sun beams in prisms. Ask your child what happened with the beams of light as they passed through the prisms.

We have 2 ISAT tests left this week.

Happy Leap Day!

Today we went to Centre East to see the show “Super Scientific Circus.” The kids had fun watching a scientist named Mr. Fish and his mime friend Trent. They worked together to explain scientific principles including friction, inertia, atoms, molecules, gravity, magnetism and more with boomerangs, bubbles, bullwhips, spinning plates and more.

This week we finished up the sound part of our energy unit. The students’ watched another funny episode of “Science Court” where they had to predict how the jury would vote based on the scientific facts about sound. The trial was based on the following situation, “Sasha Meany hires Shep Sherman to fire the town cannon precisely at midnight to kick off the town’s 200th anniversary celebration. When the cannon blast is late, Sasha accuses Shep of ruining the festivities. Did Shep fire the cannon too late?”

The students are divided up into guided reading groups this week as they read different Greek Myths. Together they are deciding on the moral and/or natural phenomena that is being explained in each myth.

The children created “Scratch” videos of different Idioms. Most of them uploaded it today to the Scratch website (www.scratch.mit.edu). Check out your child’s animation. You will need their username and password.

In math the students reviewed geometric solids, volume, and elapsed time.

Reminder:

ISAT testing begins next week.

The children revised an extended reading response today on Sojourner Truth. We reviewed the necessary components. They  need to answer the question with 2 big, broad ideas (implicit). Then they need to support their idea/reason with something the author stated in the text (explicit). Last they need to add their opinion or connection to the stated idea/reason. The children did a great job improving their original response.

Just a reminder, reading journals are now due everyday.

In math we started a week of review and preview of the following topics: fractions, elapsed time, data collection (mean, median, mode), volume, lines, triangles, and 3D figures.

I planned to do a lab on echoes today. However, many of the children were not cooperating, so we had to read about the reflection of sound instead. Hopefully, we will be able to apply this new knowledge to a hands-on investigation tomorrow. The children will be trying to identify ways to reduce and enhance echoes throughout the school building.

In reading, the children rotated to 2 out of 3 in centers.

Center 1- Direct instruction on making text-to-text connections using the stories, Hewitt Anderson’s Great Big Life By: Jerdine Nolen and The Little Fly and the Great Moose Retold By: Janeen R. Adil.

Center 2- Played the “I Have… Who Has…” game of Idioms.

Center 3- Independently worked on making all 3 types of connections (self, text, and world) using the website Into the Book.

Ask your child what centers they participated in and what work was involved.

Reading Journal Clarification: Reading journals are to be completed every night after reading. The purpose of the reading journal is to reflect and think about what was read. This assignment should take at least 15 minutes a night. The children have a bookmark in their journal, that includes all the components necessary per entry.  I will now be collecting everyone’s reading journals daily. Please contact me with any questions.

In Math the students played a game titled Close to 1000. The object of the game is to create two, 3 digit numbers (using random digit cards) with a sum as close to 1000 as possible. The student with the sum closest to 1000 is the winner. There are 5 rounds per game.

In science the children finished the string phone challenge. They recorded all their data of the materials they used and then ranked the clarity and volume of each phone. As a class, we looked at everyone’s data in a spreadsheet and were able to draw some conclusions about the materials that transferred the sound best in these phones. Ask your child about these conclusions.

We had a great Valentine’s Day party. The children had fun passing out cards to their friends and enjoying a few sweet snacks. They also watched, Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown.

Valentine's Day Party

Valentine's Day Party

Valentine's Day Party

I read Hewitt Anderson’s Great Big Life by: Jerdine Nolen to the class. I modeled the strategies of questioning and making connections as I read. The children came up with some good text to text connections. They connected this story to Stuart Little, The Borrowers, and other fairy tales they have read.

In math we worked on addition using the U.S. Algorithm.

The children participated in a string phone challenge during science class today. Using the information they learned about sound they needed to create a phone that was both clear and loud. They could only change one variable per phone, in order to track what was improving or worsening the sound. Ask your child what materials they used to create their phone and why.

String Phone Challenge

String Phone Challenge

String Phone Challenge

String Phone Challenge

String Phone Challenge