A Big Bite

We have been creating poetry these past two weeks and it has been wonderful.  Our time with Ms. Liz was magical and we can't wait for her to come back in June for the Coffeehouse celebration.

The girls celebrated reading  Because of Winn Dixie, by Kate DiCamillo, by having a breakfast book club meeting with the dads and moms.  We had a wonderful discussion about the story and all agreed that the best part was spending time with our parents.  The breakfast treats were great too!   

 

Miss Barry finished her senior project this week with us and we said good-bye to her today.  We will miss her but we know that she will be a great teacher one day!  Good luck Miss Barry!

Rock poetry was 'rockin.  I am wearing a Journey T-shirt and the girls have on Taylor Swift and The Beatles. We heard some great poems and created great visual imagery dictionaries.  Andrew presented "Juke Box Hero," by  Foreigner, which was Mrs. W's first concert!  Oh, the memories!

We will be wrapping up all of our units during the next few weeks and will be participating in several grade level activities.  Keep up with the important dates gadget, it contains a lot of helpful information. 

We CANNOT believe that there are less than 30 days left in the school year.  Where has the time gone? 

Have a great weekend!

Mrs. Williams

T-Shirt of the Day

They just keep getting better and better!

Juicy Nibble

Thank you so much for the beautiful flowers and for making teacher appreciation week so special!

A Big Bite

May 1st is college signing day.  Miss barry, a senior st FHS who is completing her senior project with us, will be attending SNHU this fall.  We know how to show our college spirit!

Tess had QUITE the snack today. I have NEVER seen a snack that large in all my years of teaching.  I wonder what Grace and Tyler thought when they came home to an empty cupboard?

It was a great week back from vacation, full of laughs and learning.  From Nikki's exploding water bottle that got on everything EXCEPT the ChromeBook on her desk, to Tess and the snack that would feed all of us and Emma announcing herself as the Ringmaster, we laughed all week.  I really do have the best job in the whole world.  To be able to belly laugh, every day, more than once a day,  is a wonderful experience. :)

We are continuing to work on poetry and are preparing for our visit with Ms. Liz next week.Poem in your pocket day was a success and we enjoyed sharing our poems with each other and the second graders.  We are printing the expert pieces and using the Chrome books daily.  In math, we finished the first part of the unit on measurement and have begun the second part of the unit which Mrs. Merten has dubbed "Measurement and Geometry Boot Camp."  We have started with telling time on an analog clock and computing elapsed time.  In this digital age, children sometimes struggle with telling time on an analog clock.  Everyone could use practice with this skill. Click here for a link to a basketball time game and for other links for telling time games.  In social studies we have almost finished the Midwest and will have a test on Friday.  We have studied the jet stream in science and will be learning about wild weather in the next few weeks.  We have read two more novels in verse this week and are focusing on identifying elements of poetry in the novel.  It is fun to listen to these books read aloud on the CD.  In addition, our focus tracking area this week in independent reading is time and computing elapsed time.  We love it when our curriculum areas connect!  In December, several of the boys chose to participate in a mother/son book club, reading The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo. Now the girls are reading a book with their dads called Because of Winn Dixie,also by Kate DiCamillo.  It is just as fun now as it was in December.

Have a great weekend, and laugh with your child.  They are a funny group!  Trust me, I know!

Mrs. Williams

T-shirts of the week!

Here are two examples of some of the cool shirts that were worn by 4th graders this week.

A Big Bite

Celebrating The One and Only Ivan, by Katherine Applegate, was a great way to end our week!  We started our day with Dance Party Friday and then did a yoga set as an entire fourth grade!

Trees in the jungle!

Hissing like snakes in cobra pose.

Breathing like lions in easy pose!

You might see a camel at the zoo!

Resting like a sloth.

 The kindergarten P.E. class joined us as we were all in the gym.  This is the largest group I have ever taught, there were over 100 children involved in the set! WOW!!!We did many fun poses based on animals that you would see in the jungle or the zoo and even incorporated some nature poses into the set as well.

Then we participated in art centers and created four different pictures that were inspired by the story.  We used pencils, markers, finger paints and we melted crayons.  Thanks to all of the families who sent in art supplies!

Nick's jungle snack. Very cool!

 We joined with Mrs. Merten's class to make a line plot of our snacks, it was fun!  There were so many varied and fun snacks.To practice vocabulary and to review the characters in the story, we played Pictionary with Mrs. Merten's class.  After Art class we took the vocabulary quiz and completed some math word problems based on the characters in the book.  Finally, as a grade level, we all watched Tarzan and compared this story to Ivan.  It was very interesting to see the differences in the plot based on the point of view of the characters.  We all agreed that the themes were the same; survival, family, and friendship to name a few.  Everyone in our class LOVED this book and agreed that this is the best book that we have read as a class this year.  It was a great day!

A class crayon art project, how many animals do you see?

Click here to see a video from the Atlanta Zoo all about the Real Ivan.  Click here to read all about the Real Ivan and to see a timeline of his life.

Writing, math, science and social studies continue to roll along.  We are using the Chrome books to write the final copies of the expert pieces, we are discussing the jet stream in science, we have traveled to the Midwest in Social Studies and we are learning about measurement in math.  It is so much fun in 4th grade!
Have a wonderful vacation!
Mrs. Williams

A Big Bite

The last two weeks have been busy and fun.  We finished our unit on fractions and decimals in math and everyone did a great job on the test.  We have started a new unit on measurement.  We are continuing to make progress in the weather unit by studying ocean currents, waves and tides.  We will be learning all about the jet stream and the many different types of wild weather events that occur in the atmosphere.  We are finishing our journey around the southeast and will be traveling to the Midwest next. Mrs. Silvia, of the Haffenreffer Museum,  came and told us all about the Native Americans of the Midwest.  It was so much fun!  We were able to try on clothes, hold artifacts and learn about the tribes through stories and pictures. In reader's workshop, we continued to track themes in The One and Only Ivan.  Everyone is LOVING this story.  We should finish next week and should be able to celebrate this book on Friday with an ALL Ivan ALL day celebration.  We will be ready to begin final copies of our expert pieces next week.  We successfully completed the first part of the Math and ELA PARCC tests.  we are all done with these trial tests until late May.  We have had the opportunity to Skype with several classrooms in the last two weeks; ask your child to tell you all about this fun experience.  It has been great to get outside for recess, spring is finally here!

Mrs. Williams