ISTEP and Missing Work

I'm attaching the letter I sent home today just in case some of you didnt get it!

ISTEP is next week!  Can you believe it!  I've included a link for you to practice with your children so that they can become a little bit more familiar with testing on the computer!  If you have any questions, please contact me!

Also, they each received a missing assignments report, PLEASE try to get this work into me as soon as possible!!!!

Parent Letter

Design and Motion

We are continuing our science lessons in Design and Motion.

The kids have designed standard vehicles to use for the rest of their investigations.  Yesterday we started our investigation on movement while carrying weight.  Stay tuned for photos of their investigations!

Poetry Portfolio Project

For our final project in poetry, I am asking the students to submit a final Poetry Portfolio.  We went over all of the details in class.  I will be assigning each group of students a poetry book in which they will analyze and include in their poetry portfolio.  I've attached the entire packet for the final Poetry Portfolio Project.

Please contact me if you have any questions!

Mrs. B

Final Poetry Portfolio Project

Poetry

So I apologize that I haven't posted for about a week, but to be perfectly honest, we have been on the go since we came back from Spring Break!

We have continued our unit on poetry, and the kids are doing amazingly well!  I submitted our class manuscript for our published book titled, Poems Everywhere!  Each students submitted 2 poems along with 2 illustrations that highlight their poetry!  I can't wait to see their finished products!!!!

We worked on several poems this week including color, rhyming, and this weekend's assignment will be an autobiography poem!  Attached you will find the documents that will help them!  Contact me with any questions!

Mrs. B.

Cinquain Poetry
Color Poetry

Cinquain Poems

Today we continued our unit on Poetry and wrote two different cinquain poems.

The first poem consisted of syllabic formatted word and the second consisted of nouns, verbs, and adjectives.  I've attached the document that helped the children figure out what words to use!  They did amazingly well!  Can't wait to post the final drafts!

How to write a Cinquain Poem

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe Final Projects

More than half of the students have still not turned in their final projects for our novel, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. 

Thursday, April 19th will be the LAST day that I will allow them to be turned in.  PLEASE see the attached documents so that your children can get these turned in.  This project is worth a total of 100 points!  I do not want any of them to get 0's!


End of Novel Project Rubric
End of Novel Choices

Student Treasures Form

I still need quite a few forms for our student treasures book.  They are located in the blog, but I've attached another copy just in case.  If you are not purchasing a book, I still need the copy so that we can get all of the kids published!  If you have any questions or do not want your child in the book, please let me know and I will not submit their work.  If you want to have your child's work in the book, please send the signed release/order form so that we can get the book sent in by the end of next week!  Be on the look our for some of our poetry, the kids are doing an amazing job!

Student Treasures Order Form and Release

Adding and Subtracting Fractions

We continued our unit with adding and subtracting fractions today!  Thankfully one of the other 4th grade teachers, Mrs. Pulido, was gracious enough to come in and explain it the "Everday Math" way ;)  I'm still a bit unfamiliar with the series and I do not want to confuse the kiddos!  So, they have been assigned the study link for 7.5 in their Everyday Math series.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to call or text me this evening!  I want to help the best I can!  I will upload a copy of the homework just in case some of the kids do not bring them home!  Contact me with questions!

Motion and Design

We started our unit on Motion and Design last week.  The idea behind this unit is to advance the students' knowledge of HOW the design of an object can allow it to have motion.  Of course we all know that cars and bicycles move, but I don't think we all know why or how.  This first lesson was about brainstorming some things that we already know about Motion and Design.  We created a chart with this headline!  Next, we created a chart with the headline, What we want to know about Motion and Design.  I was trying to prompt the students to relate back to what they already knew and branch out with some more detailed questions about why things move!  Check out some of their responses!

So we have the date in our Science Notebooks because we are acting as "inventors" and/or "Scientists."  We have to know the date that we started our projects so that we can refer back to the writings and drawings!

What we know about the motion and design of vehicles

What we want to know about the motion and design of vehicles!

We then created our science notebooks in which we wrote down our results of the charts above!  We dated our charts and observations noting that Scientists and Inventors create logging journals to document what they are doing.

Next we started creating our vehicles.  The class is divided into groups of 3.  Each team is to design a "car" using KNEX pieces.  Each group has the same amount of pieces and the same directions.  Students were only told that they had to create a vehicle that could travel at least 39 inches.  They were not given any directions about how and what needed to be on the vehicle.  I wanted the students to use what we talked about during our first lesson and focus on those concepts to create a vehicle using only the materials that they had.  It was great to see some of the students use their charts and observations for reference.  Each group had a total of 20 minutes to complete this task!  Check out some of their vehicle creations and their testing of how far their vehicles "flew!"

Each group had the same pieces and and outline of how to use the pieces!

Each team worked great together!

Each group had a stop watch so that they stayed under or right at their 20 minute mark! Most groups took less than 20 minutes to create their vehicles!

Each group had an "inventory" list with their buckets of pieces as well as a "how-to" use tip sheet of how the parts "fit" together!

Trying to figure out how to put the wheels on!

This group created their vehicle the fastest!  Check out their finished product down at the bottom!

Working together as a team!

Using connectors and rods to fit the wheels into their vehicles!

Creating a frame

Frame with wheels, they added more onto their vehicles

"Testing" how far their vehicles will travel.  The minimum distance was at least 39 inches!

This vehicle went more than 39 inches!  It was actually double that!  Students receive a measuring tape in their bucket of pieces!  Students used these to measure their distances and check to see if they met the minimum requirement of 39 inches!

Almost Finished!

Testing distance and length

Finished vehicle

Finished vehicle, less pieces than the one above and this one actually went farther ;)

Lots of details in this one!

They are so proud of their creation!

Finishing touches!

Our next lesson will consist of drawing our vehicles using a technical format.  Can't wait to see how our drawings turn out!  Stay tuned for all the pictures!

Poet Tree!

Here is our finished Poet Tree!  Autumn was so kind enough to create the awesome flowers located on the tree!  Joey and John created all of our branches and Ms. Haas created our outline for the tree!  I created some vocabulary cards as well as types of poetry cards so that students have an opportunity to refer back to them while writing and reading about poetry!  As you can see we have leaves located on the tree and these leaves have poetry terms, or figurative language that we've been discussing throughout our poetry unit!  The kids did such an amazing job and I can't wait to start adding our poetry!

Check out the flowers that Autumn created!  All of the branches and limbs were created by John and Joey!

The grass was Bryce's idea and I must say, it looks great!  Very Springy!

Poetry Vocabulary!

What is poetry?  The students came up with all of these words after discussing some of the poetry we read!

Types of Poetry!

Our finished Poet Tree!  Can't wait to start adding our Poetry writings!

Buckley Field Trip Photos

Buckley Homestead in Lowell, IN

Some of the staff at Buckley!  Getting ready for the kiddos to make the stew!

Our first stop was the school house!

The School House

The kids got to sit in desks like students sat in back in 1913!  They got to meet a "real" teacher from that time and got to experience some of the lessons and customs that were present during that time for children!  The students learned a lot during our time in the school house and they even learned how to write in Spencerian script!  Take a look!

Some of the subjects that students were taught in 1913!

This was an old house back in 1850!  The kids got to learn about how and when people came to this area.  They learned about some of the things that people had to do to survive and they even got to experience some of those things!  Check out our "dusters" we made!  All were made by the kids!  They loved "dusting" the wood cabin!  They learned so much!

They loved the fireplace!

John learned how to get water back in 1850!

Chris making his duster out of corn husks, a stick, and string!

Autumn did a great job making her duster!

The students also got a chance to "loom" a handmade pot holder!  They had trouble at first, but by the end, they were pros at looming, in and out, in and out!  They ended up with some great pot holders, and they were so proud they made them all by themselves!

Our next stop!  The Hired Hands House!  Lots of chores done here, including "fetching" water, washing dishes and cooking our lunch!

Washing hands before cooking!  The water was freezing!

Cleaning, washing, setting the table, and sweeping the floors!

Old dutch oven used in 1850!

Chris and Michael doing the dishes!

Autumn and Michael "fetching" the water from the well!  They were working great together and completed all of the chores that were assigned to them!

All the students go to stir the stew!  This was all made by the students!

Finishing up their chores before lunch!

Getting the seating area ready for everyone to have lunch!  The straw was our seating for lunch!

Finally eating the yummy stew and biscuits!

We had such an amazing day at Buckley on Monday!  The students had so much fun learning about school in 1913, traveling to the Midwest in 1850, and cooking, cleaning, and various other activities during the 1900's!  The students learned so much and had a blast!