Fourth Grade VR HC

With pinecone turkeys in hand, our class ventured to the Forest View Transitional Center to wish the residents a happy Thanksgiving.  The students recited Thanksgiving poems that many had memorized and gave the residents a turkey creation.  We were served punch and cookies while we visited with our new friends.  Many of the residents told us about their employment years ago and they mentioned musical instruments that they had once played.  Our students shared their musical talents and what we are doing in school this year.  We are very happy we made this trip and we plan on making a return visit later in the school year.  To view photos of our visit click on the link below.

link - http://picasaweb.google.com/viewridge34hc/ForestViewNursingFacility?authkey=Huh6xJSFziQ#

In preparation for our stone soup feast and our visit to the Forest View Transitional Center we went pine cone harvesting.  Between wing 1 and 2 exists a great pine tree with loads of perfect pine cones for our turkey project.  We picked just the right “turkey body” and returned to the classroom to add feathers, a head, and a wattle.  Each pine cone turkey has a different personality.  The turkeys were used as center pieces for our stone soup feast and will be gifts to the residents at the nursing home. 

More information on the stone soup feast may be found at an earlier entry of this blog.  We wish to thank Mrs. Gilmore, Mrs. Low, Mrs. Mason, Mrs. Doran, and Mr. Kermoade for helping with the stone soup culinary school.

Ms. Naismith, our counselor, came into the classroom on Friday to prepare the students for their visit to Forest View.  She read them a book which provided the students with thoughts on what it is like to be a resident in a nursing facility.  Our class will recite Thanksgiving poems for the Forest View residents before presenting their turkeys.

I am sure you have heard all about the Mr. Lenseigne “car wash” on Friday.  What a treat to see our principal doused with water as he pedaled a large tricycle along the front drive of the school!  Students who had sold twenty or more items in the school fundraiser threw buckets of water to “clean” Mr. Lenseigne.  What a good sport!  The PTA earned $25,000 in this fundraiser.  Amazing!

Our science lessons this week were very exciting.  On Tuesday, the rye grass and the mustard seedlings were established enough in our model basins to attempt the vegetation/erosion experiment.  Using similar procedures as in past experiments the students placed the models at a seven inch slope.  Right before our eyes we observed that water flowing through vegetation causes considerably less erosion than in our previous experiments.

Then on Thursday, the students created a model placing rocks, dams, vegetation, sand, gravel, and houses where appropriate.  Their designs incorporated all their previous learned knowledge to design the best model to create the least amount of erosion.  On Friday, the students then added the water source to their model to find out how well their model designs would hold up.  It was pretty exciting!  The students really did learn a lot from this week’s experiments.  Success abounded!

In math we continued our perimeter and area studies.  We also worked on solving word problems emphasizing strategies.  We are now only including steps three, four and five in our problem solving write-ups.

Our reading of Where the Red Fern Grows continues.  We worked in our literature circles to answer analysis questions on the first eight chapters of the book.  The students also did a character analysis of the main character, Billy.

Our art for the week was to create aluminum foil and permanent marker turkeys.  The students drew a turkey on a piece of cardboard.  They then traced Elmer’s glue over their draw lines.  Once the glue was dry they added a second glue coat.  The aluminum foil was placed over the dry glue lines and rubbed.  The permanent markers were used to color their turkey rubbings.

This coming week is a short week at school with each day being an early dismissal.  I will be working on report cards.  Therefore this blog will be on vacation until after the Thanksgiving holiday.  The students will be continuing with Where the Red Fern Grows, working on finished perimeter and area problems and doing some science writing.

Happy Thanksgiving to all! 

You know about too many cooks in the kitchen?  Well it is not true.  We had twenty student cooks and five adult cooks in our classroom kitchen to make stone soup Wednesday.  Ms. Roney, our teacher intern, encouraged our culinary lesson with a Swedish version of the popular folk tale Stone Soup.  To view our cooking experience check out the photos at the link below.

link - http://picasaweb.google.com/viewridge34hc/StoneSoup2008?authkey=6SXcCUEcUJE

We are off and running with a new novel this month, Where the Red Fern Grows.  We learned that the author, Wilson Rawls burned all of his unpublished novels because he thought he was not a good enough writer.  His new wife encouraged him to rewrite one of the novels and we are lucky to have WTRFG.  The students are creating entries on our classroom wiki page  which they will use in their book project this month.

In science we learned how slope affects erosion.  The students readied their models as they have in the past, but this time they gave a seven inch slope to the model.  In this experiment water is poured into a cup with a hole in the bottom.  The water flowing out of the cup is the source of the stream.  As the flowing water made a stream bed, the students checked their hypothesis to see if extensive erosion would occur.  Just before the flow of water ended the students collected a sample of water to check for increased erosion.  Sure enough, erosion increases with an increase in slope.  We then prepared for the next experiment which is to see how vegetation protects sloped land from erosion.  Mustard and rye seeds were planted in their models.  We have been waiting all week in anticipation of the seed germination.  We will formulate a hypothesis on Tuesday and experiment to see if vegetation helps to control the erosion process.

Ms. Roney taught our art lesson on Friday.  The lesson was on overlapping.  The students created overlapped leaf drawings in crayon.  They then did a watercolor wash over their completed project.

We are continuing our work with suffixes and root words in spelling.

Our social studies lessons this week shared information on the geography of Washington state.  We studied many map skills including latitude, longitude, hemisphere, continents, country, state,  prime meridian, and we discovered the symbols for our state including state bird, flower, tree, insect (yes, it is the Green Darner dragonfly) fish, fruit, dance, fossil (the Columbian Mammoth) and that the state flag is the only green flag of all the state flags.

In math we we looked at finding angle degrees and we learned more about perimeter and area.

A notice went home Friday concerning our Stone Soup activity this coming Wednesday.  Please send to school the ingredient or supplies that your child agreed to provide by Tuesday.

A field trip permission slip will be sent home Tuesday concerning our trip to the Forest View Transitional Center on November 24.  We will visit this nursing facility to present Thanksgiving poems and to engage in conversation with many of the residents.

Twice monthly we get together with our kindergarten buddies.  Activities vary and enthusiasm abounds.  Our fourth graders help the kindergarten buddies one-on-one learn and practice skills.

To view photos of our class with their buddies click on the link below.

link - http://picasaweb.google.com/viewridge34hc/200809KindergartenBuddies?authkey=rrn_3Djc8Vg#

What a busy week!  We completed our election unit with the election of Wyatt and Edmund as President and Vice-President.  Congratulations to all the candidates and their supporters for a well-run election “season.” You may view candidate speeches, commericials and debates on this blog below.

In math we began the Investigations 2 unit on geometry and measurement.   We have defined the attributes of quadrilaterals and triangles and we have defined regular and irregular polygons.  Math vocabulary that we have discussed include: right angles, acute angles, obtuse angles, and equilateral, scalene and isosceles triangles.  In addition, we have defined quadrilaterals, parallel lines, trapezoids, parallelograms, rectangles, rhombuses, squares, hexagons, heptagons, octagons, pentagons, decagons convex and concave,  and Venn diagrams.

Reading projects were due on Thursday and will be returned to the students on Monday.  For the most part, the projects were well-done.  The students had one last chance to correct their work by adding sticky notes to each section where they found mistakes.  Generally, we will need to continue working on remembering proper paragraph format and conventions.  This project was the first of its kind for about half of the class.  Using the feedback that I will individually give each student should help with the next reading projects.

Science was just plain awesome last week.  The students brought in stones to add to their models to create barriers in their “rushing waters” experiment.  We discovered how water takes the path of least resistance.  In our second experiment we built dams in our models to save the community of Gaveo.  Each team of engineers designed what they thought would be the best barrier to flash flooding in this simulation.  Several teams achieved a variety of successes and some teams will be required to return their “earnings” to the Gaveo Town Council for failing to hold back devastation to Gaveo. 

Three more parents are needed for our Stone Soup project on November 19.  We will begin making soup around 9:40 and need about an hour of assistance.  Please email Mr. A. if you can make it.

The 2008 Room 20 Presidential election results are in and the candidates selected in a very tight race are Wyatt and Edmund from the Omnivore Party.  Our congratulations to all the candidates for a well-run election.  I know you learned a lot from the process and you should be very proud of your endeavors and successes.

To view the Vice-President Debate click on the link below.

Link - 2008-vice-presidential-debate

Click on the link below to view the 2008 Room 20 Presidential Debate.

Link - presidential-debate-highlights-2008

The Carnivores, Herbivores, and Omnivores worked extremely hard last week preparing for their candidate speeches and commercials.  They also wrote position questions to pepper the candidates with in the upcoming candidate debate on Monday.  You can view the candidate speeches and commercials on this blog below.

Learning the political process has been the most valuable lesson learned in our election unit.  The students may only know many of the issues superficially, but they do understand the election process totally.  They have been very serious about creating their party platforms and expressing their issue concerns.  This unit has been thoroughly enjoyable.

We are rapidly coming to closure on our reading project for Elijah of Buxton.  The project will be completed and is due on Thursday.

In spelling we have been working on apostrophes and on adding the suffix ful to words. 

We will complete our math unit on fractions, decimals and percents on Monday.  This past week the students worked on mastery of adding and subtracting fractions to 2.  Using equivalent fractions to help in this process has really brought the students along on these math concepts.

On Thursday we were treated to a concert by the Everett Symphony.  The theme of this concert was “Surprise.”  We heard many familiar pieces including The 1812 Overture and  Night on Bald Mountain.  Last Monday we attended a performance by the Fifth Avenue Theater Company.  They presented a series of vignettes from several picture books.

In science we completed an experiment on the concept tributaries.

Please check our website for upcoming events in November.  We will be making Stone Soup on November 19.  Several parent volunteers will be needed to help with the soup preparation.  Please let Mr. Arbuckle know if you are available to help on that day in the morning for about one hour beginning at 9:40.