Our 4th grade classes at Oakland Elementary School studied our behavior with buying and disposing of trash.  We first collected and counted our snack trash that we made Monday-Friday in the classroom.  We researched ways we could change our family's buying habits in order to make wiser decisions.  Our goal was to make less paper and plastic trash the following week.  We needed to reuse plastic containers, buy in bulk, package things ourselves and try to eat fresh fruit instead of little pop-top cans or containers and fruit roll-ups that are prepackaged.  Why not just bring the apple or the orange or the pear...not much to throw away after we eat that! 

 

We looked at how people around the world were being creative with the 3 R's (recycling, reducing, and reusing) and then we got a little creative ourselves.  Not only did we want to utilize the 3 R's, we wanted to look around our neighborhoods and find ways to make them better. 

 

We wrote ACTION PLANS!  First, we stated the problem we saw in our world.  Second, we wrote about our idea for solving the problem and how we could do it step by step.  We considered problems and possible stumbling blocks.  Finally, we stated what happened.

 

Here are a few of our ideas:

We could collect plastic bags from our neighbors and give them re-useable bags instead.  We could clean up our playgrounds and parks with our friends and families and think of ways to make them better. We could be part of a "Lake Sweep" to clean up Lake Bowen using boats and gathering all the paper trash.  Ideas started flowing and we had fun teaming up with our classmates and our parents to start making things happen!

 

Check out the pictures below to see ways we saved the world!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Engaging in a Little Inquiry in the Wonder Room

The great thing about fourth grade is that the more we learn, the more we realize how much there is to learn!  And, the Wonder Room at Oakland Elementary is the place to go when you want to discover new things.

First, we checked outall the interesting parts of the room. 

Then we got to work.

We were in 4 groups that traveled around to four different investigations.      

Refraction makes this pencil in water appear broken.  It's an optical illusion!

Buddy Reading with Mrs. Mayfield's First Grade Class

We love when

Mrs. Mayfield brings her first graders for "Buddy Reading".  At first we thought it was great to be able to take time away from studying in the afternoon so we could read to our first grade friends.  But, by Christmas week we were especially excited because we had found small gifts to give our buddies.  We quickly wrapped them and made tags so we would know whose gift belonged to who!  We wanted to wait until the end of our time together to give out our presents, so we hid them and just started reading as usual. It turned out that the first graders surprised us!  They had written us special letters telling us how happy they were to have made 4th grade friends and how they looked forward to these times when they walked all the way down to the 4th grade hall to read to us.  They had written the notes in their best handwriting, each note a little different than the others.  Giving and receiving gifts is what we all look forward to at Christmas, but it seems the true meaning is making friends and letting them know how special they are to us.