A Big Bite

This week's blog post was written by Miss Decker, our student teacher.  Enjoy!


We have had a very exciting past week here in room 23! On Monday, Mrs Silvia came for her third visit and taught our class all about the Native American tribes of the Midwest. We learned about how they hunted, what they wore, and parts of their culture! Tuesday started Miss Decker’s last week of “take over days.” In math we have learned quite a bit about symmetry and reflections. We wrote “creepy clown” poems, drew reflections of pictures, and learned about lines of symmetry. In science we finished our “Wild Weather” unit with blizzards, but we have had a lot of first hand experience with that! For social studies, we have learned more about the Midwest and learned a lot about the important bodies of water there. In writing we began “apology poems” or “Forgive Me Nots,” inspired by William Carlos Williams and his poem “This Is Just To Say.” On Thursday we had the honor of having Ruby Bridges at our school! What an amazing time! She gave an amazing presentation on her experience as the first black student in the South to attend an all-white elementary school. Greyson even volunteered to pretend he was Ruby and tried to talk to the governor into letting him go to school! On Friday, we made a word splash as a class and wrote Ruby Bridges acrostic poems. They are fantastic! Overall, what a great week in room 23!
By Miss Decker

A Big Bite

Rock and roll will free your soul! Anna and Mrs. W look like they bought their shirts together!

Where have the last two weeks gone?  4th grade is flying by! We took the reading MCAS and have been reading Love that Dog and Hate that Cat by Sharon Creech in reader's workshop.  In writer's workshop we continue to celebrate National Poetry month.  Creative Arts Friday rocked with  rock poetry. We created visual imagery dictionaries to illustrate everyone's poem.  We enjoyed hearing everyone's poem/song and a few of us even started dancing!  The theme of many of the poems/songs was about "breaking up."  We finished the morning with Kyle's poem, Here Comes the Sun, by "those people," (Greyson) The Beatles. It was an uplifting and positive way to end the morning.  In math we have been working on time and graphing.  We will be starting a unit on symmetry when we return from vacation and preparing for MCAS. We are starting our study of the Midwest and it is a very exciting region.  This week in science we learned about tornadoes and we even made plastic bottle tornadoes.  It was tons of fun! The warm weather this past week is making everyone hungry for spring and summer and happy to see winter gone.  The last few moths of 4th grade are filled with many exciting activities and the week after vacation is just the beginning.  We will have another presentation from the Haffenreffer Museum and a surprise later in the week.  :)

Have a great week and read lots!!!

Mrs. Williams

Bookworm Buzz

I Wish I Were a Butterfly by James Howe
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Great lessons here, an oldie but goodie. The possibilities are endless1


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Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken by Kate DiCamillo

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Great mentor text for writing fiction; write an adventure for Louise! Students will love this one!

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Rosa by Nikki Giovanni

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A great non fiction picture book that details the events before Mrs. Parks said "no." Great mentor text for narrative non fiction.

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Ruth and the Green Book by Calvin Alexander Ramsey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A great mentor text, historical fiction.  Author's craft and voice will make a strong impression on readers in addition to the fact page and website.

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Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A great life lesson wrapped up in poetry.  Rhyme, alliteration, you name it, this is a great mentor text across the curriculum.  Readers will discover something new with each read!

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Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse by Marilyn Singer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The reverso poem was fun to read, and a bit challenging.  I really needed to slow down and take my time to fully comprehend the poems.  I can't wait to try this poetic form in poetry workshop and this book IS the mentor text.  I'm sure students will have great ideas for how to create their own reverso poems.

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A Big Bite

Skype answers from the class in the southeast

The last two weeks have been very interesting here in room 23.  Spring has started, yet we had a snow day which cancelled the long comp, state wide!  This was a first for teachers and students.  When the long comp finally came this past Monday, everyone worked hard.  We are really excited to dive into the poetry unit and are looking forward to the rock poetry project on Friday, April 12th.  We are finishing up myths in reader's workshop andmany students have decided to try a book group with Miss Decker. They will be reading The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan.  It's a challenging book and many of us are reading it with a parent or listening to it on tape.  In math we have been learning about area and perimeter and even designed a house for a ladybug family.  It was a lot of fun.  Miss Decker has started to teach us about wild weather like hurricanes, blizzards and tornadoes.  We are also going to be learning about the jet stream and ocean currents.  One of the highlights from the past two weeks was when we were able to Skype with a class in the Southeast.  In technology workshop with Mrs. Merten, we researched general information about Massachusetts and prepared answers to questions people might ask about our state.  When it was time to Skype with the other class, we learned that they had researched the same information about their state.  Through a series of question/answers with this other class, we were able to figure out what state they were in and they were able to figure out the same thing about us! Can you figure out what state they were in?  Look at the photo above for the answers to their questions. It was so much fun and we are excited to do the same activity with students from different regions around the country.
It has been great to get outside and run around at recess because it seems like spring may finally be here.  No more snow days, please!

A Big Bite

It was a great week in room 23.  Will's mom, Mrs.  Henrichon, came to JFK to talk about the animals of the northeast.  She works for the Mass Audubon Society and was able to tell us so much!  We were able to feel pelts of different animals and look at some skeletons.  It was really awesome. :) We took a test in math on measurement and will be starting graphing next week.  Mythology and MCAS prep are our themes in reader's workshop.  Everyone is very excited to learn about Greek mythology.  We wrote one final narrative in writer's workshop in preparation for the Long Composition on Tuesday.  We are ready!  In science we learned about clouds and in social studies we started learning about the southeast region.  One of the highlights of our week was Pi Day (see below).  We can't believe how quickly 4th grade is passing, time is flying in room 23!

A Big Bite

Pi day, was a HUGE success!Today is the 114th day of school which is pretty cool because today is 3.14.  To begin the day, we each decorated our race bib and everyone had the same number, 3.14.  We started the day by learning about  the meaning of Pi with a Brainpop video. We recorded data about our favorite "Pi," dessert  and our favorite "Pi," food.  Then we recorded data about the circular snacks that we had for today.  We put all of this information together in 3 separate line plots and we combined our data with data from Mrs. Merten's class.  Dr. Looney,  math consultant for the Franklin Public Schools,  stopped by to see how we were doing.  She was SO impressed with all of the math skills that we were using to celebrate Pi.  Some of the many skills we used were; measurement, graphing (line plots), analyzing data, calculating elapsed time, and addition and subtraction of decimals.  When it was time to run the 5k (3.14 miles), each student had to complete a math problem before they could receive the baton to run their leg of the relay race.  We used a ruler for the baton.   We learned that the answer to every problem was 3.14.  It was funny.Our class finished the race in 28:09 which is a great time for a first race. Mrs. Williams was able to record all of us running, check it out!  Lea summed it up best when she said, "Today was the best math lesson ever."  I think so too, Lea! :)

Congratulations to all of the runners!

Favorite Food Pie, Pizza!  Quiche did  get one vote. :)

The favorite dessert pie was Whoopie Pie, and Pumpkin and Ice Cream  Pie tying for 2nd.

And the last two runners! 

Juicy Nibble

Hey there, gang!  As Mr. Williams was pulling into a parking space before the race, I looked up and guess who was in the space right across from me? Yup!  Mrs. Henneberry.  I was so excited to see her all the way up here in my neck of the woods.  She was so friendly, as always, and agreed to take a picture with me.  When you see her, tell her "great job," on the race.  She did awesome!