A Big Bite

It is a balmy Saturday afternoon in October, and the trick or treaters will be arriving soon. This past week in room 23 was busy as usual. We have continued to read Mr. Popper's Penguins in Reader's Workshop, and are making good progress with our independent reading books. The students have been writing a great deal of poetry and have begun paragraphs about the perfect weather day. We finished unit 3 in math and took a test on Friday-everyone did a great job! We have begun our study of genetics and had a lot of fun looking at pictures of our "ancestors." Kristen had a picture from the 1800s which was made of tin! We were able to see many similarities in the pictures. We could see Kassidy's smile in her grandmother's face, Nick's nose in his grandmother's face and Jolie in the picture of her aunt, as a little girl. The student's were also able to recognize their parents in the faces of their relatives. It was a very cool lesson indeed! We have wrapped up our study of Mexico and will be testing this week. In the pictures above you can see us making God's eyes, a Mexican craft with Mrs. Merten's class. Friday was a fun day as we celebrated earning 30 parrots for good behavior with the specialists, with a movie party( see pictures above). The "party in a bag," was a huge success and I had a hard time resisting some of the special packages. Laura made the mistake of telling me that she had a canoli in her bag, so it ended up on my desk, in addition to several others (see picture above). I did return them to everyone, no worries, but some of them were mighty tempting!

Thank you for the generous donation of $45.00 dollars to Barnes and Noble and $20.00 to Walmart, made to the wishing well at Open House. These gift cards will come in handy to help purchase supplies and books for our classroom.

Have a great night trick or treating, it seems like it will be perfect weather. If you want to e-mail pictures of your child in his/her costume, I will blog it tomorrow. Have a safe and happy Halloween!

Mrs. Williams

What an exciting week this was for the students in room 23. We continue to learn so much. In Social studies, we have been learning about Mexico, and we will make masks next week for Dia de los muertos. The test will be coming up soon! In math, we continued to work on multiplication facts and played one of our favorite games, multiplication baseball. We have continued to read Mr. Poppper's Penguins, and the story is getting really good. On Wednesday, we had 11 visitors watch us do Reader's Workshop. Mrs. W told us that all of those teachers were very impressed with us! Our book count for this week is 298 books read so far this year. WOW! Mrs. W has written new posts to her reading blog, and there is a tip for parents about book bags, check it out! We are finishing our Halloween Haikus and starting our Perfect Weather Day paragraphs. These paintings are called Sumi-e paintings, and we made them in Art. Mrs. W had us write haikus about our paintings and Mrs. Toye is going to try to put them in her newsletter. We ran the mile in P.E. and Tabitha had the fastest time, running it in 8:11. Our first music quiz is next Wednesday and if we all pass we will get our recorders. The quiz is on rhythm and Mrs. MacMurray gave us a study guide to prepare. The bookfair was a lot of fun and Mrs. W says "thanks" to all of the students and parents who purchased books for our classroom library. Some of the most exciting news is that starting on Monday, we can sign up with Mrs. Y to run for Student Council. Everyone who wants to run will need to make a speech to our class. 4th grade is so much fun!

By,

Ellie

At the Core

Dear Parents,
A quick reminder:
The students should be filling out their reading logs every time they read, and not waiting until the night before it is due to fill it in and ask for signatures. Please only sign the log each time your child reads, not all at once. This is not only an exercise in reading, but an exercise in self discipline, responsibility and independence .
Thanks for your support.

A Big Bite

Dear Parents,
It was a short week for the students in room 23. We were very busy for such a short week. In math, we started multiplication and Mrs. Y came in to work on Open Response questions. Also, we are finishing our Tessellation projects. We are writing Haikus for Halloween. This goes along with our art lessons of making Sumi paintings. We our Science test on Friday. We have begun learning about Mexico and colored a Mexican flag. We have read 258 books as of 10/16/09. In reader's workshop, we have started a novel together called Mr. Popper's Penguins by Florence and Richard Atwater. We had many guests visit us this week and even more for next week! Next week's visitors will be watching us in Reader's Workshop. The book fair is on Monday and we are so excited to go! Our new class pet is an alien! The turtle is drying out on the windowsill along with the sting ray. Until next week!
From,
Ellie

Juicy Nibble

The Franklin Public Library is having a book sale this Saturday. On the Franklin Public Schools website there is a coupon for a free book. Enjoy!

A Big Bite

Picture from Nick's Microscope of Pond Water near Kassidy's house

Dear Parents,

Hello to everyone and especially to our friends in India who are keeping up with the news from room 23! We have had another exciting and busy week in 4th grade. Last night was Open House and it was great! Do you like the pictures? How do you think you did on the quiz? Two moms received a score of 90%-AWESOME!!! Some parents didn't do well and will need to have their quiz signed! The quiz made many parents nervous. One parent was especially vocal about NOT wanting to take the quiz, but he survived. Ellie says that he will need her signature :)

We worked very hard to get ready for Open House and we hope that you had a great time. If you still haven't signed up for a conference, please give Mrs. Williams a call.

We had many tests this week and we even had a fire drill during one of them. We did not expect that!

In math, we finished a unit on addition and subtraction and have begun an enrichment project on Tessellations. Our test on Maps and Globes went well-everyone did a great job and Mrs. Williams was very proud of us. Next week, we will start learning about Mexico. In science, we continued to work on microscopes and looked at salt under the lens. Nick shared his really awesome microscope with us and the picture above is of Franklin Pond Water. We could see organisms moving around, they were very fast! We took this picture WITH Nick's microscope. TOO COOL!! Thanks Nick. Mrs. Williams says that she is going to make the JFK Science Coordinator, Mrs. Merten, buy her one. We'll see...

The week ended with Kassidy inviting ALL of us to her Survivor party. The invitations look and smell really interesting. Have a great long weekend!

By,

Jolie

At the Core

Dear Parents,
It is wonderful to see the children so excited about reading! They are sharing books with each other and talking about their reading more and more each day. Some children have donated "finished" books to the classroom library. THANKS!!!! Some children would like to "lend" books to our class for the year. I have established a bucket for the "to lend" books, but please be aware that I cannot guarantee that these books will be returned in the same condition, or even at all, in June. I will not be replacing any books that are lost or damaged. We have discussed this as a class and everyone has agreed that there is a risk to "lending" a book, and understands the consequences if something should happen to a particular book. It is a tough lesson to learn, and I am reminded of it personally every year. Just today, I went looking for two books that I knew I had, only to find that they had not been returned last year. I just wanted all of you to know where I stand on the "lending" issue, and if you are at all concerned about your child's books, please do not allow them to share them with the class.
Thanks!
Mrs. Williams

A Big Bite

Itwas another awesome week. We had the puff mobile races on Thursday and you can click on the videos above to see two of the races. The first video shows the girls in our class racing. The second video shows the "all boys race" in 4th grade. The races were a lot of fun! Reader's workshop is on a roll! To date. we have read 151 books! Many teachers have been into our classroom to watch us do reader's workshop. It is cool when they come in to watch us. We get to see our third grade teachers and even got a peek at the fifth grade teachers.We finished our bio poems and have begun writing free verse poems. In math, we are working on addition and graphing. Our Social Studies test on map skills is next Tuesday. We will be using microscopes next week in Science. Also, Open House is next week. We are looking forward to having our parents come to Open House to see all that we have been working on so far this year.

From,

Jolie