Juicy Nibble

Go, go Power Rangers!!  Happy Halloween!

Author Alert!

Mrs. Merten and I met Patricia Polacco at the Wellesley Book Store today!  She was really nice and told us that everything that happens at the end of her new book, Gifts of the Heart, is true!  It was so much fun to watch Mrs. Merten meet one of her favorite authors, she was so excited and even a little nervous.  Patricia Polacco was so friendly that as soon as we started talking to her, all of her nervousness went away. :) We even saw Mrs. Swan waiting in the book signing line as well. What a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Author Alert!

Popular children's author, Patricia Polacco, will be at Wellesley Bookstore, Sunday, October 27th at 2:00 to sign her new book, Gifts of the Heart.  She is one of Mrs. Merten's FAVORITE authors OF ALL TIME!!! Hope to see you there!

Note from the bookstore: PLEASE NOTE: To enter the signing line you must purchase a copy of Gifts of the Heart from Wellesley Books.

A Big Bite

4th grade version

It has been an action packed two weeks in Room 23!  We have wrapped up a few units in math, science and social studies and are moving on to new topics!  Creative Arts Fridays continue to be a highlight in 4th grade.  We are almost done with the Power Point presentations in Technology and many of the list poems are finished or almost finished.  Halloween haikus have begun in Poetry Workshop.  We were able to do a "Poem Swap," with Mrs. Roberts' first grade class.  The poem "Things to do at a Teacher Sleepover," was born during a revision session in the first block of Poetry Workshop.  Both Mrs. W's and Mrs. Merten's class wrote a class poem and decided that they wanted to see what the first grade version of the poem would look like. So, Mrs. W asked Mrs. Roberts if her class would like to write a list poem about a teacher sleepover during writer's workshop and she agreed!  We shared all of the poems on Monday with each other and the idea of "Swap a Poem," was born.  We have agreed to swap poems a few times this year and we can't wait. :)  Click on the pictures and ZOOM in to see what the students thought would happen at a "Teacher Sleepover."  We know you will enjoy it.  Did you know that teachers wouldn't play tag because, "teachers can't run!"
We will be moving on to division in math now that we have finished our unit on multiplication.  In science we will be learning about heredity (vocabulary lists went home) and in social studies we have begun a unit on Mexico.  We should finish The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate this week in reader's workshop and we have been focusing on answering open response questions, similes and metaphors, character traits and cause/effect relationships.  We can't wait to get to the end to find out what will happen.
4th graders are busy people!
Mrs. W

A Big Bite

Ryan designed the poster of Ivan for our character trait study.

Everyone is really starting to finally settle into the routines of 4th grade.  We are loving The One and Only Ivan and are working hard to improve responding in writing to comprehension questions.  In writer's workshop everyone has so many great ideas to write about, it is hard to pick just the right one!  Our list poems are shaping up and Mrs. Merten says we only need a few more weeks to complete our Power Point presentations.  We are done with map and globe skills and will be taking the unit test this week.  In science we looked at pond water from around Franklin under the microscope and saw some interesting organisms.  We will take a test on this part of the Life Cycles unit this week and then move on to Heredity.  In music,   I was treated to a recorder concert!  Everyone played the first song that Mrs. Mac taught and it sounded great!  Many students took advantage of the extra credit opportunities in Language Arts this week and did some extra writing at home. The super hero paragraphs were fantastic!  Many students are also taking advantage of the optional math practice which is great to see. This week we will be wrapping up some units and continuing to make progress with the goals of 4th grade.  Keep working hard!

Mrs. Williams

Juicy Nibble

The gadget that controls the Important Dates is not working.  Here is a list of upcoming tests and other important information.  Thanks for your patience and hopefully Blogger will fix this problem quickly.

10/8-Math quiz-Multiplication/In and Out Boxes

10/14-Columbus Day-No school

10/16-Science Test-Scientific Method and water cycle

10/17-Social Studies Test-map Skills

10/19 Ladybug 5k

A Big Bite

Microscopes, puff mobiles, and Open House were just some of the highlights this week in room 23.  We have continued to work on multiplication in math and are playing several games with math facts.  In science, we used microscopes to look at salt crystals and grass seed.  Next week, we will look at pond water and water from the Charles River.

In social studies we are practicing finding locations using exact coordinate points.  It was fun! In reading we started a new novel, The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate.  We also were able to look at gorillas on the webcam at the San Diego Zoo.  Hopefully the webcam at the National Zoo will be back online soon. Here is a link to the book trailer that we watched.  Everyone is very excited to really get into this book!  Mrs. Merten has started to teach everyone how to use Power Point in technology, it was fun!
Thanks to everyone who was able to make it to Open House on Thursday, it was great to see so many families.  If you have not signed up for a conference , please click the link in the post below to go to sign up genius to register for a conference.
Mrs. Williams

At the Core

The sign ups for report cards went live at 8:00 this morning and you should have received an email invitation to the site.  If you did not, click here to go the site and sign up!