Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Simulation and Other News

Let's start with the Gulf of Mexico (blue tub) with a pelican happily swimming along.  Add a 1/2 cup of oil and observe what happens.  Materials available for clean-up: Dawn liquid, cotton ball, straw, coffee filter, sponge, scooper cup, and tub to hold contaminants. 
You are part of a group of scientists who have been hired to clean up the gulf and save the oil covered pelican.  Can you do it?





Ok, guys, before we jump into this we have to have a plan!

 

Let's each tackle a different problem to get done faster. 

Joseph and Donnell make a great de-greasing team!

We can do this if we stay calm and work together!

 

Hey, hold the coffee filter up while I pour the polluted water thru it!

 

 

30 minutes later we learned that cleaning up environmental mistakes takes on new meaning when there are innocent animals to consider. And... cooperation will always save the day!!

 

Other News:

17 Students Earn Honor Roll Status!

 

Principal's Honor Roll

Donnell Bobo

Connor Bruce

Olivia Ireland

Nazarii Klymiuk

Kara McGowen

Sarah Reilly McMahon

Chloe Moyers

 

A/B Honor Roll

Keira Baird

Max Green

Zachary Johnson

Pierce Koreniuk

Jayden Levesque

Jonathan Lewis

Brooklyn Nodine

Emily Pruett

Ruvim Sakalosh

Erika Sushchik

 

Terrific Kids

Max Green

Olivia Ireland

 

Upcoming Tests & Projects!

 

Jan. 28th: Poetry Test (look for starred papers in homework folder)

 

 

Jan. 29th: Math Addition and Subtraction with Regrouping of Mixed Fractions

 

Feb. 2: Science Magnetism Brochure due (We will be starting on this in class this week. Students can finish up over the weekend if necessary.)

 

 

You are cordially invited to attend our first-ever Beatnik Café on Thursday, February 5th at 1:00 in the OES Media Center!  Can you dig it, man?


We will all be presenting our favorite poem by reciting or reading to an "audience."  Refreshments will be served!  Please try to come.  RSVP on the form coming home Monday. We need to save you a seat, so send back your reservations by this Wednesday. 

 

Channel 4 Visits Room 407 and Other Shocking News!

 

 

Golden Apple Video


On Wednesday, January 14th, the Channel 4 News Team with Beth Brotherton came knocking on room 407.  Connor Bruce and his mom had sent a letter to Channel 4 telling them about some of the things going on in our fourth grade and they wanted to take a look themselves.  They caught us working on our Action Plans for our Tread Lightly PBL! 








Everyone had claimed a spot somewhere on the floor either inside the classroom or in the hallway.  Glue, scissors, rulers, construction paper, photos of us in "action," letters from grateful recipients of our community service, brochures, sketches, journals and other documentation were waiting to be placed on our backboard poster.  We were all immersed in our designs! When they heard and saw all the details of our current project they wanted to know what else we had done this year.  The Buddy Bench was something they were excited to see, so they followed us out on the playground for an impromptu recess and filmed Hannah, the newest member of our class, test it out. 

A special thanks to everyone in the class for your hard work on this project.  And especially Connor and Mrs. Bruce for making our TV news fame possible!

                            Electricity Circuits in the Making

Inquisitive minds want to know what would happen if....

 

Now that we know how to make a circuit, let's test which objects will act as conductors...

...and which will be insulators.

All scientists must take time to document what's happening! 

A lit-up light proves that we have a conductor!
 



It works!  Let's do that again!

Brownie and Spike's Adventures

 

Let me introduce myself.  I'm Spike and everyone in Mrs. Johnson's class is convinced I'm shy, elusive, and quite the scaredy-cat. But, something exciting happened on December 19th.  Keira, our caretaker, took us home to her Papa's house. 

 

 

 

Meet Brownie, everyone's favorite.  Once we both got there Papa took us out of our terrarium and let us investigate our new playroom.  We had so much fun.  Papa forgot about us and we found lots of hiding places.  Mrs. Johnson doesn't know this but we almost got lost twice!  We were so thirsty after our adventures we both climbed up on our sponge and drank and drank and drank.

 

This is "Papa," but everyone calls him Mr. Craycraft.  Here he is reading his journal to the class. He wrote in it everyday telling how we spent our Christmas vacation. Thanks, Keira and of course, Mr. Craycraft!

 

And, now for our week's activities:

Check out "Paul Revere's Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

and another

"O Captain, My Captain" by Walt Whitman

Thursday and Friday we will be presenting our original BLACKOUT POEMS!  Practice reading them at home to your family.  You'll be evaluated on how well you can read it aloud...be loud, clear, and dramatic!!

 

We will also work on writing a SELFIE Poem.  You will take a selfie and then write about yourself using the diamante format.  Can't wait.  Cooper might want to work on one too.

 

You can review for next week's Science test on electricity by watching this video:

Welcome 2015! So Glad You're Here!

 

Celebrations have been taking place all over the world.  Everyone's excited to see the brand new "baby" year be born.  Check out some of their celebrations in all our different time zones starting with Aukland, New Zealand.  They saw 2015 first!

Everyone wants to make a difference in the new year and all of the 4th graders at Oakland will be doing just that as we finish up our Action Plans to make the world a better place.  All Action Plans are due next Friday, January 9th.  Remember we will be writing it up in class, but you need to bring your documentation (logs, photos, planning sheets, videos, etc.) as soon as you finish up at home.

Exciting things will be happening when we get back to school, that's for sure!  We will start a brand new Poetry Unit with a creative new way to write poetry called BLACKOUT Poetry.  Austin Kleon is introducing you to his idea on this video that we will watch on Monday.  It is too cool...you steal words in a newspaper article and turn them into your own original, free-verse poem! Although we will start with free verse we will study 10 different types of poetry, make a poetry notebook and have a Poetry Slam.

 

In Science we will be designing and building electric circuits.  You will be working on two types series and parallel.  Can you tell the difference? Bill Nye will get you started on a few basics here...I love Bill Nye, don't you?

 

The very first thing we will do on Monday is count our steps for the Winter Reading Challenge!  It's not too late to get with your parents and have them sign your logs for the past two weeks.  Remember we want to be the best class in 4th grade and leave Mrs. Gault's class in the dust! 68 lines per student was our goal for the 17 days of Winter Break. How close will YOU come??

Last Minute Reminders

Dear Class,

Just a few reminders and things...

1. Congratulations on the wonderful job you did with Mrs. Mitchell on Friday!  I was so proud of the way you listened and took notes on how to "Brain Purge" as a writing technique when you have a timed writing test. 

 

2. This will be a "fun-filled, faster than the speed of light" week.  There will only be one test and that will be all about the Declaration of Independence first thing on Friday.  Stay tuned for notes and class review all week.  Parents, look for important study guides in the Social Studies section of our notebooks.  Here's the youtube video we watched in class on Friday called, "Too Late to Apologize...a Declaration."  See you if you can pick out our Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John Adams, Samuel Adams, and John Hancock.

 

3. Dr. Patterson has set the 2014 Oakland Elementary Holiday Reading Challenge to begin after school ends on Friday!  This is an important contest between all 4th grade classes to read as much as possible over the 17 days of Winter Break.  The winning class will earn "Pancakes with the Principals," a class trophy, and bragging rights for the rest of the 2014-15 school year.  My class has won the past two years and can do it again.  Don't let Mrs. Gault's class cloud your vision.  Read first thing in the morning, in the car on the way to all your holiday fun and before bed every night. Have your parents send pictures of you reading on Facebook or Twitter #OESRead and I'll do the same.

 

 

 

http://oaklandelemlibrary.blogspot.com/2014/08/resourceswebsites.html

Polar Express Pancake Breakfast...Did You Survive It?

Although the temperature wasn't freezing and the winds weren't blowing...it WAS raining! Lots of OES students and their parents hopped aboard the

Polar Express anyway.  Lots of pajama-clad children were greeted by a conductor, Frosty, and Santa Claus. Many thanks to  the P.T.A. and all the families for coming out to help raise money for our school.  I saw Connor, Sarah Reilly, and Chloe...but thank goodness they had really good waitresses. Poor Emily and Olivia had to put up with this one...

But, I learned that having a lot of back up support in the kitchen made my job a lot easier than I ever remembered my days as a waitress being!  Thanks to all the families that contributed further by also leaving me TIPS which will go towards our after Christmas classroom STEM projects.

Shine a Little Light on Socrates and Socratic Circles!




                                                   

                              Up Close & Personal



 This past week we learned about Socrates, a philosopher in Ancient Greece.  He loved to talk to people at the agora and ask them fundamental questions about their life.  He taught them to question everything. Socrates thought that if you were too busy you wouldn't have enough time to reflect on your life and what was important to you.  He has often been quoted as saying, "An unexamined life is not worth living."  Many people living in Athens at that time were very wealthy and thought that there was nothing more important than gathering money and things.  Socrates thought it was more important to do good deeds and think about your very existence. Many people did not like Socrates and, in fact, had him arrested for corrupting the youth and not believing in the gods.  Socrates convinced the court that the good of many was more important than the good of one man.  So, he agreed to be put to death.  In the end he inspired many people!

 

This coming week we will learn how to debate a topic in a Socratic Circle much like Socrates would have done.  In our current "Tread Lightly" PBL we have studied two points of view from people in the Pacific Northwest, the environmentalist and the loggers. We will prepare arguments and counter-arguments and see what happens. Monday look for homework to get ready for Wednesday's debate. Check back next week for pictures and maybe a video of our "Socratic Circle."

 

On Tuesday we will have a test on the 14 words from our Socrates article.  Be ready to match synonyms with the words and be able to use them in sentences. 

 

Friday we will have a "LIGHT" Science test.  We have been investigating reflection, refraction, absorption, translucent, transparent, and opaque. 

Check out some of our experiences! If you comment on any of the pictures by telling what you learned you can earn 5 extra points on your test on Friday.