Holiday Fun on Friday

We have a fun day planned this Friday, December 19, and wanted to let families know what to expect before winter break.

We will start our morning with two stations; the first is a craft project that half the students will work on while the other half play with Snap Circuits. If you are not familiar with Snap Circuits, they are a great way for our students to get some safe, hands-on experience with electricity. This is the perfect end to our energy unit, which we just finished today!

Snap Circuits: One of the coolest toys ever!

 

Later in the morning the students will be finishing their fun winter stories and then will have their last Artist in Residence session. Finally, we will return to the classroom for our Electronics Party!!! We let the students vote on a party to celebrate their participation in the food drive and electronics party won! Tomorrow, we will be sending home more information about our electronics policies, but please be aware that we have school iPads available to use rather than bringing devices from home.

If you would like to send a treat to school with your child to share with the class, please have your student let us know tomorrow. We will be offering these as snacks during our afternoon party. 

Have a wonderful winter break with your families. We look forward to seeing you all in 2015!

The joy of creating computer code.  Last week some of the 4th graders had the opportunity to do further experimentation in developing computer code.  As you can see from the video below it was met with the kind of enthusiasm that only our amazing 4th graders can exude. Students can do that at home as well.  Just go to Code.org and follow the directions.  I know some of them have already tried it.

Canned Food Drive

Despite our best efforts, the H/K kids took second place in the canned food drive! We lost by a mere eight cans! I want to give a HUGE thank you to all of our students and families who donated to this wonderful cause. I know our local food bank appreciates all of our efforts. Your kids have amazing spirit and big hearts.

The students furiously unpacking the huge donation from Peyton's family.

Posted with Blogsy

Teligami

Last week the students we serve with our new iPads were asked to create a "Teligami" to express their opinion about living in the tropics vs. a desert climate.  It was the first time the students had been exposed to the Teligami app.  The app allows the students to record their voice using an animated character.  The students can make choices on the physical features of the character.  They can also choose different backgrounds for the character.  The app is modeled and intended for short messages.  They can not be longer than 90 seconds. We had a brief time on our first trial but we had a couple of successful "Teligamis".  The young women below says..." In my opinion it is much better to live in the tropics than the desert because there are many more usable natural resources in the tropics."  Let us know if you would like us to send you the "Teligami" directly.
  

Updates

Extreme Weather Excitement

Now that we have survived the first bout of “Extreme Winter Weather”, it’s time to get back to business! Last week we did not send home DSL’s, Reading Logs, or spelling lists. With conferences starting on Friday, we have decided to NOT send home Fox Reports this afternoon. If you have any questions about how your student performed last week, we can happily say that everyone had a great two day week! There were no new major assignments, and we are seeing a huge improvement in math homework turn-in. Thank you for your ongoing support from home.

Not quite this extreme

Conferences

As stated above, conferences begin this Friday, November 21^st. We have early release on Friday; kids will be excused at 11:20 and conferences will begin at 3:30. We will continue conferences on Monday, November 24^th. If you have any questions about your conference time, please contact the main office. They have access to our schedules and may be able to make changes.

Your students are welcome to join us, as they are an important part of the conversation. We will also hand out report cards at that time.

Shoebox Speech

This week we are also not sending home a traditional DSL assignment. Instead, we are asking students to begin work on a Shoebox Speech. This is a great assignment that gives us an opportunity to learn a little more about the lives of our learners outside of the classroom. We have attached the assignment here so you can look over the expectations with your child. We will help students begin the outline and write the introduction and conclusion in class, but the practicing and refining of the speech will need to be done at home over the next two weeks. We will begin presenting speeches the Monday after the Thanksgiving holiday, December 1^st.

Shoebox Speech Assignment

Fun in the Fourth Grade

After nearly two months of hard work, last week was a great opportunity to have some fun in the fourth grade.

For the last two weeks our students have been mastering the art of the array. These handy models help students learn the processes behind multi-digit multiplication. If you look carefully at the pic collage above, you will notice the students carefully creating the arrays with our base-ten pieces. This week's focus will be on using sketches of the models to quickly solve two-digit by two-digit algorithms.

In addition to new learning in math, we also completed our second independently written persuasive paper. The students were asked to describe the perfect pet and defend why they thought it was a good choice. We are already seeing huge gains in the writing abilities of our students. It will be fun to share their work at our upcoming conferences.

In Language Arts we have been focused on informational text and learning about climates from around the world. This has tied in nicely to our new ELD unit, which is a series of lessons on the geographical features of Oregon. We will end our studies with a writing piece where students must defend living in either a desert or tropical climate.

And, finally, the fun! On Friday, rather than having a traditional harvest party, our students headed to the computer lab for an afternoon of code.org. This fantastic site is dedicated to helping kids learn the fundamentals of computer coding. While it at first seems like all fun and games, we believe our students will attest to the thinking skills they had to use in order to complete the coding challenges. You could feel the energy in the lab as the kids worked through some pretty tricky puzzles. We want to encourage all our students to visit the code.org website and continue the course two activities.

Friday was wrapped up with one of our favorite art projects. Students used crayon, Sharpie, water colors, and a straw to create the masterpieces shown above. If you are in the building, be sure to take a closer look in the fourth grade hallway.

We were lucky to have two of our moms donate time to come in and cut apples and scoop caramel for our special "harvest" snack. A special thank you from Mrs. Harrington and Ms. Kinsman for not only providing the help in getting the food ready, but also cleaning up the classroom after the art and eating!

October 31st is Sneaking Up!

We are preparing for a bit of fun in the afternoon on Friday, October 31st!  We are actually going to be doing a bit of computer "code" writing.  The students have really enjoyed this in the past, and it is highly engaging and great for critical thinking.  We would also like to enjoy a little treat on this day.  Are you willing to send in a few fresh, crunchy apples or a container of soft-serve dipping caramel?  After doing our last health unit on eating more fruits and vegetables, apples seem like a good compromise. :)  Please send us an e-mail if you can help with sending in these items.  You are appreciated.