He Stood Out From the Beginning

 Imagine our surprise when our principal, Dr. Patterson, dropped by to read us one of his new favorite books.  (Not just surprised but flummoxed !)

This coming week we will continue turning in our Kindness slips.  If you ran out of slips, you can just write them on a blank sheet of paper.  Try to think of some kindnesses for your family, friends, and even those that you do not know. Monday we will, hopefully, make our Kindness Meter grow.

Watch this video clip about Sneeches, write me a paragraph summarizing the video, and you can earn extra credit in Language or Reading.

This week we will examine character traits from the 6 main characters in our book and find evidence to prove that trait.  Here is a peek at the 6 characters, so you can see what traits the rest of the 4th grade chose. See if you agree: 
(I put August first since that is the one we worked on: ) 

 

 

 

One of our favorite activities this week was PEOPLE Bingo.  We are still trying to get to know our classmates, so this helped!  We had 10 minutes to use non-verbal communication to find classmates that fit the description on our BINGO cards.  Some examples were...find a classmate who speaks 3 languages, loves to ride roller coasters, likes to eat fish, can cross their eyes, and has more than 3 children in their family.  Kara filled up her card first!



Does Nazarii have 5 kids in his family?




Can Jayden cross his eyes?

 



Can Chloe speak 3 languages?

Does Kaleb eat fish?

Does Brooklyn like to ride roller coasters?

 

Have you earned any FUNNY MONEY yet?  Here's a way you can!  Get a member of your family to comment on this week's blog and you will earn $5.  That $5=5 points on a test grade in any subject.  WOW!!  This offer will not be advertised in class.  A maximum of $5 can be earned in any week.

 

 

 

And now for the "Catch of the Week" :

Social Studies– We will continue studying early explorers by focusing on their motivations and accomplishments.  We will make 3 explorer trading cards and diary entries from the perspective of the explorer

Reading– Students will examine character traits from the 6 main characters in our novel, WONDER, finding evidence of traits

Language– Students will write friendly letters and continue studying quotation marks.

Math-We will be subtracting using regrouping strategies

Science– Students will practice classifying vertebrates and invertebrates

 

 

Oh, Those Magical Trees!

 

Every part of the tree can be used! Do you remember what we can do with the bark??

Look closely...do you see how everything on our planet is connected?

Kara and Donnell these are good looks for you!

How does the forest help with erosion?

There is such a thing as a FREE lunch, no matter what you've heard.  Here are a few pics of the before and after. 

When is fire in a forest a good thing?

 

Can Donnell diagnose a tree's health problem with a stethoscope?

Mrs. Johnson's favorite part of the field trip was when she learned how to make paper...and right afterward she lost her class!!

Here's Madison showing Mrs. Johnson the CORRECT way to use the wooden tool.

 

Everyone agreed this was a magical field trip.  We now understand just how important it is to treasure our trees and to do everything we can to protect and preserve our resources.

Magical Forests, Here We Come!

 

 Wood Magic Forest Field Trip! 

 http://www.state.sc.us/forest/wmfair.htm

 

Check out the site to see what we will be doing.  Look for photos of us on next week's blog.




Results of our Rocket Launch:

Keira and Carson were the all-time winners with a launch of 85 feet!

Maddox and Jonathan were not far behind with a launch of 83 feet!

Kaleb and Michael won 3rd place with 67 feet!

 

 

Catch of the Week for September 14-18

Social Studies– Understand the major motives for early exploration to the new world (political, economic, and technological) and write 6 word memoirs for the explorers.

Reading– Students will read articles on kindness and write summaries, examine character traits finding evidence of traits and make inferences when reading “Don’t Laugh at Me!”

Language– Students will study the friendly letter format and purposes for the friendly letter

Math-We will be adding large numbers in a variety of ways.

Science– Students will practice classifying vertebrates and invertebrates

As we continue to read the novel, WONDER, we will be focusing on the precept: When choosing between being right and being kind, choose kind! Look for our responses to that precept on next week's blog.  This week we will be reading about how others have done "Random Acts of Kindness" and "Paid it Forward."  We will try to collect 100 RAK in our class for one week.  Can we do it? 

This is the focus schedule for the week:

Monday-Show kindness to your family members!

Tuesday-Show kindness to 4th graders, other than your friends!

Wednesday- Show kindness to people you don't know!

Thursday-Show kindness to anyone who works at OES, beside your teacher!

Friday- FREE choice!

 

 

Ground Control to Major Tom

 

Although David Bowie wrote this song 36 years before you were born, it's still perfect for this week's Science experiment! Check out the video above for a collection of real life rocket photos from space. I think he wrote it to help us celebrate the first time a man (Neil Armstrong) walked on the moon.  That was 1969!

 

Get ready because we are designing paper rockets on Tuesday so we can have our own launch on Wednesday. 

 

You will be working in pairs to write a TESTABLE QUESTION: How long should a cylinder be on a paper rocket to make the rocket launch the farthest distance?

 

So, you and your partner will have to decide how long you want your paper cylinder to be.... that is the MANIPULATED VARIABLE!

 

The RESPONDING VARIABLE is the distance your rocket travels. We will have a couple of parents ready to help us measure.

 

 

Check out this link to find out more about rockets and the solar system. http://camp.wonderopolis.org/track/1

 

 

Kaleb had to design his rocket by himself because Michael was absent on Tuesday, but Michael was there today to help him launch it and they were one of the winners!

Adisyn and Brooklyn were excited to have one of the winning rockets.

This is Donnell in action ready to leap up and come down with as much force as possible on the launcher!

Check out Pierce and Connor ready to launch their rocket.

 

 

 

 

This week, besides reading our novel, WONDER, we've been reading other books that have bullying as their theme.  We finished reading Bully by Patricia Polacco and Don't Laugh at Me by Allen Shamblin and Steve Seskin which was actually first written as song lyrics and then later turned into a book. If you want to share the video with your family or just want to hear it one more time check out the link below.

 

 

 

Thank goodness for all the nanas, pop-pops, yayas, papous, nannys, poppys, grandmothers, grandfathers and one mama that made it to our cafeteria Friday morning! Check out our family photos:

 

Whoop! Whoop! Native American Homes Completed!!

As promised, Brave Cooper is proud to share the Native American homes completed this week!  Students from each region did their own blogging.  Mrs. Johnson just typed what they said.  The regions represented are the...

 




Pacific Northwest

First, we used popsicle sticks for building the plank house.  We couldn't decide to use a small box or big box.  So we did both. The one in the picture is the big one because the other one didn't finish. by: Nazarii
Great Basin

The name of our house is the Hogan.  I brought a bowl and we painted it green.  Then we added some bark and hot glued it on.
Next, we glued rocks around the bottom of the bowl. The blue paper is the river and the thing on it is a canoe.  And then the green paper is suppose to be a garden.  Can you see the flowers? by: Kara

 Southwest 
We built a pueblo home.  We used our materials box as the bottom.  And we collected milk cartons from lunch for two days.  Then we glued the milk cartons to the box.  Then we got 4 skewers then stuck them in the materials box.  Then we got a brown piece of paper and stuck the skewers through it so we had a roof.  We got play-dough to form land next to our house.  We had problems with the paint spilling on our land, desks, and chairs!  We had a huge mess on our desks!! by: Keira

 Plains
We built an Earth Lodge and a tee-pee.  Some people  stayed in one place so they lived in the Earth Lodge.  Some people lived in tee-pees because they were nomads, they traveled alot. We used a plastic bowl for the base of the E.L.. We put play-dough on top of it with bark.  For the tee-pee we did a circle of tiny tee-pees with a huge tee-pee in the middle.  The tee-pee in the middle was made out of a plastic cup and a cone paper cup.  Our main problem was we ran out of brown paint.  Our other problem was that we couldn't agree on the "ground" but we put brown paint on it anyway, so we had to paint it brown!
by: Sarah Reilly

 





Eastern Woodlands
So we started with the Chickee and we used sticks, cardboard, and 3 popsicle sticks and hot glue as well.   We painted the floor black and the base green because the Chickee had to be built on stilts because they lived in swamps and had to keep the alligators out.  (by: Connor)  We needed a shoebox, a rectangular piece of wood, popsicle sticks, and a hot glue gun to make the Longhouse.  We had to use the shoebox as the base and we painted it brown.  We used the two pieces of wood, overlapping it and glued it to the shoebox.  After that we used popsicle sticks to cover the piece of wood to make it look more realistic.  Our main problem was that everyone had so many ideas that we couldn't do all of them, so we split up into groups. (by: Jayden)  Me and Connor worked on the Wigwam.  We took styrofoam bowls and stacked them and covered them with strips of brown paper.  After we did that we glued small pieces of bark on top of the brown paper.  And then we painted over the white with brown paint. The main problem was making the door.  We had to use scissors at a 50 degree angle and cut through the styrofoam. (by: Chloe)

Catch of the Week for September 8th

Social Studies– Understand the major motives for early exploration to the new world (political, economic, and technological) TEST Tuesday on N.A. Regions

Reading- Continue reading the novel, Wonder, studying about character traits, story elements, and vocabulary within the text.  We will also study the 5 types of bullying. TEST Thursday on types

Language– We will finish writing our memoirs  incorporating examples of transition words and figurative language. Quotation marks will be introduced. MEMOIRS due Friday

Math-We will continue rounding numbers to nearest tens, hundreds, and thousands using the number line. FAST FACTS and ROUNDING TEST Friday

Science– we will design paper rockets and launch them introducing the terms testable question (how far will my rocket go) and manipulated variable (will the length of my rocket influence the distance).

Precept #1:  Your deeds are your monuments!

Here are the student responses that were selected for the bulletin board:

 

I think that it means that if you do good things it will pay off.  by: Sarah Reilly

 

I think that it means that whatever you do in life will affect you for as long as you live.  So, if you do good things you will be known as a good person.  But if you do bad things you will be known as a bad person. by: Olivia Ireland

 

People remember you for all the good things you do. 

by: Timothy Jackson

 

I think this precept means that your actions will define you, and you need to do good things. 

by: Chloe Moyers

 

I think this means that the deeds that you do can be what you're remembered for in life like helping someone who just needs help.  You can even be remembered by very small deeds in life.  A deed does not have to be big. 

by: Jonathan Lewis

 

 

These Kids Making a Splash!

These students already scored a 90% or better on their FAST FACTS test:

99 Club: Erika, Sarah Reilly, Donnell, Connor

90+ Club:  Keira, Chloe, Olivia, Kara, Jayden

 

Congratulations!  9 Down, 15 to Go!


 

Help our classroom by donating to our classroom grant.  We want to get Legos to help us learn math!http://www.donorschoose.org/project/build-it-and-they-will-come/1323424/