Franklin Food Pantry Drive a Success!

GO ROOM 20!  So proud of an amazing food drive!

Thank you to all our fourth grade families who donated food and other supplies to our food drive for the Franklin Food Pantry!  We are happy to announce that JFK fourth graders collected 377.5 pounds of food and other supplies for the Food Pantry!  What a heartwarming and compassionate way to start the weekend!

Thank you, families - none of this is possible without you!

Dig It! Archaeology Program!

What an awesome way to start the week!  This morning, we had the privilege to attend "Dig It!" an archaeology program from the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology's "Cultural Caravan."  Thanks to the PCC, we were able to learn all about the different ways archaeologists use evidence to learn about prehistoric people!  We learned about carbon dating, counting tree rings, pottery seriation, and soil.  We got the chance to reconstruct broken shards of pottery and dig for artifacts to learn about the culture of a Northeast Native American tribe.  We cannot WAIT for the next visit from the Cultural Caravan - thank you PCC!  Check out the photos and video below to get a taste of our work as archaeologists - enjoy!

 

Stone Soup Play!

In reading, we've been practicing reading plays.  We've learned the essential parts of plays - characters, stage directions, lines.  We've discussed the importance of reading fluency and expression when reading lines aloud.  We've made movies in our minds using the stage directions and descriptions of the setting.

Check out the videos of our small groups performing "Stone Soup!"  We're especially proud of our expression, team work, and posture!  Stay tuned - this week, we'll be writing scripts based on our favorite scenes from The Sisters Grimm, the read aloud book we just finished!

 

 

 

Indoor Recess Domino Tricks!

Check out this video that Room 20 domino builders created during indoor recess last week!  Very creative, everybody!  Use the video to help you think about how you'd redesign it next time.

End-of-Week Update, 12/6

We learned a lot about the Franklin Food Pantry, what they do, what they need, and what we can do to help!

What we've been up to:

"Welcome to boot camp," Mrs. Adams told us in writing this week.  This sounds a little harsh, doesn't it?  We didn't have to do 50 push ups for Mrs. Adams.  Instead, we had to write a whole essay in one day!  An essay is when you have an opinion about something and you have to include specific reasons why you think that way.  We wrote an essay about how awesome Kennedy School is.  Don't you agree?  Welcome to the Midwest!  In social studies, we learned our capitals and abbreviations and labeled and colored our poster maps.  Next week, we're going to learn more about the geography, climate, and economy of the Midwest.  On Wednesday and Thursday, the class was practicing reading scripts.  We talked about how it's important to read with expression and know when your line is coming up.  We read the script "Stone Soup."  On Thursday afternoon, we all acted with our friends as different characters.  You can see the videos on the blog coming up soon!  In chorus, Maggie was chosen as "Celebrity Singer" and was one of the only two people left on the list that Mrs. MacMurray and Mrs. Shepherd made!  In math, we took our decimals test!  In English this week, we learned about context clues.  That's when descriptions or definitions of a word are right there in the sentence!  We finally finished The Sisters Grimm!  We really enjoyed reading it together because it had a lot of action, there were a lot of suspenseful parts, there were LOTS of Wordly Wise words, and it was funny!  We have our December speech to do.  There are a lot of different speech topics you can choose from.  The Franklin Food Pantry came to visit us this week.  They feed over 600 families!  We will be having a 4th grade food drive next week to help them out!  Drop and give me 50 - I mean, a good weekend!  :)

Thanks to Ms. Erin Lynch from the Franklin Food Pantry for talking to fourth graders about what they do!

We are looking forward to the 4th grade food drive next week!  

Congratulations to Maggie for being named Celebrity Singer this week!

What's coming up next:

• On Monday, the Haffenreffer Museum in Providence will be visiting 4th graders for an anthropology lesson!  Students will be enjoying the first of four sessions this year about Native Americans!
• There are two half-days of school next week (Thursday, 12/12 and Friday, 12/13) for parent/teacher conferences.  Please send in a dismissal note if your child is going home a different way than normal.
• Fourth graders are holding a food pantry drive next week!  This is an optional way for us to share what we have with those who do not have much.  Any donations are welcome and appreciated!  Thank you!

Gretchen's Awesome Domino Tricks!

Welcome back, Room 20!  I hope everybody enjoyed a fabulous Thanksgiving break.  I know I definitely enjoyed relaxing, visiting family, EATING, and having fun!  Gretchen also had some fun over the extra long weekend.  Here she is with her own AWESOME domino trick!  This must have taken a lot of patience, creativity, and time.  Go, Gretchen!