Juicy Nibble

Here are the students who volunteered to have their speech posted on the blog. Enjoy!

Juicy Nibble

Thanks so much to EVERYONE for the beautiful "giving tree." I am touched and overwhelmed by your generosity. Kudos to Mrs. Doggett for such a creative and thoughtful gift. Have a wonderful holiday season.
Fondly,
Mrs. Williams

A Big Bite

It has been a very busy time in room 23! We finished The Family Under the Bridge yesterday, and ended our food drive for the Franklin Food Pantry today. We talk so often about how readers talk about their reading and write about their reading, and today we were able to act in response to our reading. Your generosity was overwhelming. As a grade we collected 413 pounds of food-AMAZING!!! Thanks to everyone who donated to the food pantry, and to Mr.Landry who volunteered to help deliver the food. He also brought a corporate donation from Ocean Spray, via Mrs. Landry, so thanks to Ocean Spray as well!

Here are some pictures of us in math centers preparing for the chapter 5 math test. Also, we made barometers in our weather teams and talked about how wind makes weather and that there are different types of air pressure systems that affect the weather.It was wonderful to see all of you at conferences last week, where has the school year gone? Thanks for your donations to the wishing well, I have been able to use the donations for classroom supplies and new books for our classroom library. YEAH!!!Next week will go by quickly, as we have so much planned and plenty to accomplish. It is a busy time of year indeed!

Mrs. Williams

Juicy Nibble

Today was our Yoga class before school, what a great way to start our week together. Thanks to everyone who volunteered to get up early and come in to school to practice Yoga with me. Everyone seemed to have a great time. Some of the quotes from this morning are: "I thought the Yoga was fun and I liked the game, "; "The archer pose was cool!"; "I liked the breathing,"; "I liked when we had to lie down and listen to music for five minutes," and overwhelmingly, everyone liked the music. Thanks to Shakta Kaur Khalsa for her Radiant Child music CDs, Cozy , Happy and Deeply Relax and Meditate, and for helping me start on my journey of teaching yoga to children. Check out some of the pictures that Mrs. Merten and Mrs. Adams took of us at class this morning.

A Big Bite

The week after the Thanksgiving break was a busy one. We have accomplished a great deal in all academic areas. We have started two and three digit multiplication in math, and have finished our study of Canada. We spent a great deal of time learning how to read non fiction texts, and how to use the text features to improve our comprehension. We really liked learning how to read and use a timeline! The test on Canada will be next Friday. The Family Under the Bridge, by Natalie Savage Carlson, is our new interactive read aloud. Our skills for this book are "theme, cause/effect and summarizing." We are reviewing how to respond to open response questions and narrative elements. As a fun activity, we made stained glass menorahs with sharpies, plastic wrap and tin foil. Many of us are excited about Yoga on Monday Morning, Mrs. Merten is joining us!

Spotlight Archives

Run like the wind!

Nitin loves sports, is a good athlete and a very fast runner. The Town of Franklin organizes a 1.2 mile kids’ race during the 4th of July celebrations every year and Nitin has won first place in this race, in his age group for the last two years. This year, he also won the first place overall and ran faster than all the 7-13 year olds who participated in the race (over 150 kids). He completed the 1.2 mile race in 6 minutes and 43 seconds. He was recognized as the fastest kid on his flag football team, basketball team, soccer team and baseball teams in 3rd grade. His coaches and team parents called him “Speedy”. Nitin is a good athlete and was selected to be on the “A” Team for soccer and basketball in 4th grade. His coaches and his parents appreciate that Nitin is not a “ball hog” and is very good at passing the ball in both soccer and basketball. He works hard and plays with full commitment to his team. We are proud of his sportsmanship and enjoy watching the “Speedy Nitin”.

Juicy Nibble

A few students volunteered to have their Thanksgiving speech video taped and then put on the blog. Enjoy!

A Big Bite

We had a cool and fun week. We wrapped up the Life Cycle unit in Science with the Heredity test. Our next unit will be weather. In Social Studies we began to learn about Canada by making Canadian flags and watching a power point on the provinces and territories in Canada. This went along with reader's workshop and our lessons on how to read non fiction. We also finished Macbeth. The class loved it! We decided that two of the many themes in this story were grief, and suffering from a guilty conscience. It was a rough ending, but we loved it. Mrs. Williams says that we will read more Shakespeare together this year. We finished chapter 4 in math and took a test. Next week will be full of fun activities having to do with Thanksgiving, mostly writing and our speeches are due on Tuesday. If you haven't brought in a wire hanger yet, don't forget to bring it on on Monday! Our week ended with a movie party to celebrate earning 30 parrots at our specials. We watched Toy Story 3. It was sad and funny at the same time. Mrs. W's free yoga class will be on Monday December 6th. Don't forget to sign up by having your parents email Mrs. Williams.
Have a great weekend!
By,
Christina and Nasir

Author Alert!

Andrew Clements will be appearing at Tatnuck Booksellers in Westborough, MA on Saturday December 4, 2010 at 1:00 p.m. Andrew Clements is a very popular author for elementary school students. Click here for more information on this event.

A Big Bite

Last week was a great week. We did so much! On Friday we celebrated the end of Mr. Popper's Penguins with an all day celebration. On black and white day we had black and white snacks, cold weather stuffed animals on our desks, we wore black and white clothes, and we watched March of the Penguins. We took a short test on the book, played Pictionary with some of the vocabulary words and made Arctic drawings on black construction paper. It was so much fun!! This week we will be taking a math test and a test on heredity. We will be starting to learn about Canada, and will be working on the genre of non fiction in reader's workshop. We have been working very hard in specials since September and have earned 30 parrots for our good behavior and effort. As a class, we voted to have a movie and special snack party as a reward. The movie will be Toy Story 3 and we will watch it this Friday.

By,

Christina and Mrs. W

Spotlight Archives

Brenna just had a rigorous tryout for the 4th grade Metro teams and made the “A” team, so she will be playing competitive basketball until March.Brenna loves to wear knee pads when she plays – it enables her to get down and dirty on the court and she won’t hesitate to dive for a loose ball. She has a ritual when shooting fouls shots: bounce three times with right hand, spin ball, set stance, shoot. She loves to shoot hoops with the kids in the neighborhood and our driveway is often the location for a game or a “tournament.” She really values the friendships she is making and responds very well to coaching. She plays hard, she has a good time, and it is a lot of fun to watch her.

A Big Bite

It was a short week in room 23 but we got a lot done. On Monday, we learned about the Mexican holiday , "Day of the Dead," by watching a Power Point Presentation and by making skull masks. We did this with Mrs. Merten's class. On Friday we finished the unit on Mexico by taking a test. In science, we learned about what makes us unique and Gregor Mendel. In Reader's Workshop, we have almost finished Mr. Popper's Penguins and will be celebrating the end of the book next Friday with Black and White Day. A notice went home today explaining all about the celebration. Our new book count is 250 books read so far this year! After Brenna's book talk on Who Was William Shakespeare, Mrs. Williams started reading Macbeth to us. She is reading the Bruce Coville version which is written for kids. We never knew a 400 year old story would be so good! It is a tragedy. We are comparing this text to Mr. Popper's Penguins. The skills that we are working on in Mr. Poppers Penguins, we are working on in Macbeth too! We have been talking about predictions, connections, questions, character traits and cliffhangers. We have begun to talk about Macbeth's character traits. We have even questioned whether or not Macbeth is evil or good. We learned about "cliffhangers," and we have left off wondering whether or not Macbeth will kill the king. We have made some interesting predictions about it. Stay tuned, because we will find out next week. In writing, we are working on the district writing prompt. We hope to finish next week so that we can get back to some poetry. In math, we have started chapter 4 which is all about decimals. Our tessellation projects are almost done! On Monday we heard the student council speeches from the students in our room, and Riley was the winner. Congratulations to everyone who participated!
By Shaelin and Mrs. W

Poem of the Week

Things to do if You're a Musician
By Ali Grace

Bring happiness
Sound wonderful
Have fun
Tell about things
Make people smile
Make people dance
Be yourself
Make everyone laugh
Express yourself

Things to do if You're a Skateboard
By Joe

Jump some jumps
Have some wheels
Do some tricks
Do a 360
Jump curves
Get ridden by a pro
Roll on the ground
I think it would be fun to be a skateboard

Things in My School
by Ryan W

Books
Nooks
Pencils
Stencils
Flag
Bag
Map
Cap
Chair
Hair
Teachers
Bleachers
Nurse
Purse
Gym
Tim
Lunch
Bunch
Swings and Things
Snack
Backpack
So many things in my school

A Big Bite

It has been another busy week in room 23. We have finished chapter 3 in math and took the test on Friday. We also have been making good progress on the Tessellation project and on Friday we did a lot of Halloween math problems. We even solved a 6th grade logic puzzle. We spent two mornings in the technology lab, working on math facts and on the new Science unit. We read the Gene Scene and played a few games on the genetics site. In Social Studies, we are almost finished with our study of Mexico, and on Friday we made "God's eyes." On Monday we will learn about the Mexican Holiday, "Day of the Dead," and color masks. In Reader's Workshop, we have continued with our first interactive read aloud, Mr. Popper's Penguins. We are studying character traits, questioning, making predictions, answering open response questions and making connections to the literature. Tyler, Emily, Christina and Riley did great book talks this week. We are continuing to write our scary stories and will hopefully move to the publication stage next week. After the Math, English and Spelling tests, finishing Daily Geography, handwriting practice, Learning about Mexico's Art and Culture, finishing our Halloween Math activities, creating a coloring diorama and making God's Eyes, we celebrated Halloween with a "Party in a bag," with Mrs. Merten's class. It was a lot of fun. There were lots of great treats and eats, and Brenna shared pencils with everyone. Shaelin said it best to Mrs. Williams, she said, "Thanks for today!" You are welcome, Shae, and everyone else too!
Be safe on Sunday!!!

By,

Nasir and Mrs. Williams

Poem of the Week

Here are a few list poems written by students in room 23.

Places to Go if You're a Piece of Luggage-by Emily
To an airport
To the Eiffel Tower in Paris
To the Penobscot River in Maine
Under a Tulip tree in India
To the White House in D.C
To the New England Aquarium in Boston
To the Grand Canyon in Arizona
To the Ferris Wheel at the Toys-R-Us in Times Square
To the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida
To Mount McKinley in Alaska
and to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado

Things to do if You're a Skateboard-by Nasir
Being a skateboard is so much fun
Tricks by the tons
kick flip
oli
fake shove it
pop shove it
redemption
vert
manual
spine transfer
360 degree
720 degree
180 degree
rock fake
kick turns and
backward raock fakes
That's what you'd do if
you're a skateboard

Things to do if You're a Moon-by Christina
stay beautiful
keep your craters big
shine bright
be in space
be crescent
be round
be big
have wonder
be cool
guide things
pretend to be cheese
have a nice big face

A Big Bite

It has been a very busy two weeks in room 23. Last week we had the Puff mobile races and Open House. We learned how to play multiplication baseball in math and we spent time in the computer lab working on our math facts. Here is the link that we used. Also, Mrs. Y came in to help us with Open Response math questions. It was a lot of fun, especially when Mrs. Williams threw candy at us! Tessellations is the enrichment math project that we are working on right now. It is fun to use the pattern blocks to create unique dodecahedron puzzles. In reading, we finished our launching unit in Reader's workshop, took the first of four reading tests for the year, and started an interactive read aloud called Mr. Popper's Penguins by Florence and Richard Atwater. We are working on predictions, character traits, asking questions, especially talk worthy questions, and making connections to the story. In writing, we have finished our list poems, are working on Halloween Haiku and will be writing a three paragraph "scary," story. We have finished our Science unit on the scientific method and microscopes, and took the unit test. We saw some pretty neat organisms under the microscope from Franklin Pond Water. Thanks to Jake, John and Ryan for bringing in the samples! We will be starting the heredity unit next week. In Social Studies, we have started to learn about Mexico, and are discovering that it is a really interesting country. A highlight of this week was going to the "Bubble Mania," show as a reward for summer reading. It was pretty cool to see. In P.E., we ran the mile and many of us qualified for one phase of either the Presidential or National Fitness award. There are several more phases to go, but we are proving to be a very physically fit class! Fourth grade is flying by!
By,
Jackie, Christina and Mrs. Williams

Juicy Nibble

Here are some pictures and videos from the Puff Mobile races today. Great job everyone!

A Big Bite

School just keeps rolling right along in room 23! In Reader's Workshop, we are working on learning about the many different reading genres, and writing in our reader's response journals. On Friday, we began to look at different strategies for reading non fiction, because this is such a popular genre in our classroom. List poems and free verse poems are all the rage in Writer's Workshop. We will be posting some of them when they have been published. Our work in math has centered around addition, subtraction and concepts involved with statistics and probability. We will be racing our Puff mobiles this coming week and will start a new project on Tessellations. We have wrapped up our unit on Maps and globes and will be taking the unit test on Wednesday. In Science, we have used microscopes to view salt crystals and will be looking at Franklin pond water next week. Our visit from Representative Vallee on Tuesday was a special treat this week (see post below). I am looking forward to seeing all of you at Open House this coming week. Thanks to Mrs. Carneiro I am up to 22 followers, yeah! Enjoy the long weekend!
Mrs. Williams

Juicy Nibble

Representative Jim Vallee came to JFK today to present the 4th and 5th grade students with a proclamation from the State House, in reference to being named a Commendation School in Massachusetts. JFK is only 1 of 187 schools to receive this honor this year, and the only school in Franklin! Representative Vallee took questions from the students about his job and personal life. He also hinted that he would like to bring Governor Deval Patrick to our school to show him some of the excellent work being done by students and staff at JFK. We'll keep you posted!

Juicy Nibble

Pictures and video from Science this week. Ask your child about the experiments!

A Big Bite

We have had another incredible week in room 23. On Friday, in addition to team spirit day,Mr. Adams, an electrical engineer from Raytheon came to talk to all of the fourth graders about the engineering process in order for us to begin working on our first engineering project, Puffmobiles! He came around to each classroom and worked with the individual teams on their designs. These videos above show Mr. Adams working in our classroom. We are very excited to get started building our Puffmoblies next week. A goal of the project is to learn how to work in cooperative groups, in addition to the engineering goals. Ask your child about this fun fourth grade tradition. We have finished chapter one in math and have taken the first math test. In Reader's workshop, we have continued to work on reading stamina during independent reading time, and we are making good progress. As a class, we have read 92 books so far this year and are on track to read over 1,000 books by the end of the school year! Many of us are making good decisions when choosing just right books, and putting books on hold that are a bit of a challenge. In Writer's Workshop we have continued writing goals for the school year and have taken this piece of writing to publication. Also, we have begun writing rough drafts of list poems, which is a style of free verse poetry. Mrs. Williams read several list poems from Georgia Heard's book, Falling Down the Page. In science we have learned more about the scientific method and will do some experiments next week. Our goal is to build terrariums on Thursday, and we will be needing a jar and plant clippings for this experiment. The study of maps and globes in Social Studies continued with a focus on latitude and longitude. We will be learning how to find exact locations on a map or globe given specific degree coordinates. An Open Circle goal for us is to follow the guidelines that we set up as a class during the first week of school, particularly the goal that includes being a good listener and not talking when others are talking. This is proving to be challenging for us, but with more focus, I am sure that we can be successful with this goal. Thanks to Mrs. Macchi for helping me meet my goal of 20 followers, and to Mrs. Toye for putting me over the top! Until next week,

Mrs. Williams