Haffenreffer Museum, Eskimos Presentation

Playing games is one way the Eskimo people practice hunting skills!
Here we are playing a ring toss game!

Brr! It's cold up here in the Arctic Circle.  We started our week with Mrs. Silvia from the Haffenreffer Museum who taught us all about the Eskimos and brought lots of awesome artifacts for us to see, touch, and try out!  Here's what we did and learned!  Mrs. Silvia brought in animal skins and horns / antler to show us.  She brought furs of a snow rabbit, black bear, caribou, lynx, red fox, weasel, and a mink.  We also saw horns and antlers from walruses, caribou, and a narwhal.  She brought in some pieces of whale baleen as well, which is soft and flexible inside a whale, but hardens up when it hits the air.  Eskimos never wasted any part of the animals they hunted!

Mrs. Silvia also brought some traditional Eskimo knives, such as the ulu.  We learned that when young hunters catch their first seal, they are supposed to give it as a gift to the oldest woman in the village as a sign of respect.  Then, she usually gives a new pair of boots as a thank you!  We learned that Eskimos built their houses underground, not out of ice (igloos) and they had to crawl through a tunnel to get into their houses!  The Eskimo mothers carried their babies in their hoods of their coats because it's warmer in their hoods and it keeps the babies close to their mothers.  Every year there is a dog sled race in the Arctic called the Iditarod.  We learned that the dogs (like huskies and akeatas) have to wear snow booties on their paws so they don't get cuts on their paws as they run 1,000 miles on the Arctic ice!  During the sled race and during hunting, Eskimos wore special goggles that had little slits in the lenses to keep snow out of their eyes.  We'll be making our own Arctic goggles this week!

Now, Native Americans in the Arctic are allowed to hunt just one whale a year since many whales are endangered species.  We learned about the tundra and how there are no trees that can grow due to the permafrost (frozen ground).  This makes it challenging to live in the Arctic Circle because you cannot use wood as a building material unless you find driftwood.  We learned about (and tried on) overdresses, which are dresses that are worn over your clothes and coat to keep your clothing clean.  Usually girls wear overdresses - check out the photos below!  The Eskimos played a lot of different games to help with their strength, hand / eye coordination, and stamina for hunting.  Some of games included a ring toss (Mrs. Silvia, Caroline, and Justin were the only ones who got a ring on the post!), a stick catching game (which  was harder than it looked), Eskimo yo-yo (which is different than regular yo-yos), hot potato, and a "humming" toy!

Check out the photos below and THANK YOU to the PCC for another amazing enrichment program!

End-of-Week Update, 1/24

We learned the Cupid Shuffle this week!  Check it out and dance along - we can teach you the steps!

What we've been up to:
This was a brief but productive week!  In specials, we were very busy.  In PE, we continued with our gymnastics unit and learned the Cupid Shuffle!  Listen to it (above) and we can teach you the steps.  This week everybody got their white belts in recorder karate and we're hoping everybody gets their yellow belts next week!  Keep practicing!  In chorus, we listened to "The Cats' Pajamas," an accapella group (meaning they sing without any other instruments).  In art, we got to bring home our terra cotta pinch pots and we started creating ancient Greek pottery to tell a story through our drawings.  We had two sessions of the GRADE (a reading test).  It was not the most fun, but we did our best work!  In math, we learned how to do something really cool - it was how to change improper fractions into mixed numbers and mixed numbers into improper fractions.  Mixed numbers are a number that is made up whole numbers with fractions.  On Friday, we met with our 3rd grade math buddies and review factors and multiples.  We took a quiz on the West and we think we did well because of our study plans!  We want Mrs. Adams to give lots of "WOWs" when she corrects them this weekend.  For morning work this week, we had a mini math quiz of comparing two fractions that were super close.  We're getting excited because we are almost done with our essay drafts!  We only have to write introductions and conclusions on Monday and then we'll have final copies of our essays!  It might have been a very short week, but we had an action-packed 3 days of fun!

What's coming up:

• The Haffenreffer Museum's Cultural Caravan will be back on Monday for another presentation!  Be sure to ask your child what they learned and insist on specific information!
• Next Friday, 1/31 is a half day for students.  Please let me and the office know if your child will be going home a different way than normal.
• The student council is running a shoe and sock drive for the next two weeks (through 2/7).  Visit http://www.gottahavesole.org/ghs/ for more information about the organization we'll donate to!

End-of-Week Update, 1/17

We did an amazing job with our first chorus concert!

What we've been up to:
"Smile big!" we heard at the chorus concert.  We had lots of fun at our first chorus concert singing three songs plus a warm up for 4th grade and 5th grade parents.  We were so proud of Andrew, who sang a solo for "Wake Me Up!"  Check out the videos of our show below at the bottom of the post.  In reading, we started reading James and the Giant Peach and so far James has lost his parents who got eaten by a rhino, has had to live with his two horribly mean aunts for three years, and has received magic crocodile tongues, which have escaped and grown into a peach.  A very big peach.  In math this week, we were learning how to make fractions into decimals and percents.  We also took our fractions test this week!  In health this week, we played some fun nutrition games which helped us to master what kinds of food are good to eat and not-so-good to eat.  In music, we brought home our recorders and we're planning on practicing a lot so we can all earn our white belts next week.  In art, we painted our terra cotta pots to tell a story.  They have to dry, so we'll get them back soon.  This week we finished earning our 25 points and are planning on voting for a prize next week.  In writing, we made "boxes, bullets, and squiggles," which help us with figuring out what to write in our essays.  Today in writing, we picked one reason and we wrote a topic sentence, mini stories, and parallel lists for our drafts!  In P.E. this week, we jumped and stretched and moved around when we started our gymnastics unit.  On Monday, we had a substitute teacher, Mrs. Cameron and did hard work to earn a good report for Mrs. Adams.  On Friday, we watched the Martin Luther King, Jr. "I Have a Dream" speech with all the other fourth graders.  We learned that Martin Luther King wanted to let freedom ring and have his children be able to sit at the same lunch table as white children.  Martin Luther King was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi.  He was arrested many times for his boycotts and demonstrations.  We also learned that he sadly died at the age of 39, but he had a huge influence on our lives!  Let's see what adventures await next week!

What's coming up / Notes from Mrs. Adams:

• Students will be taking a West quiz on Friday, 1/24.  Be sure to check out their study guides and study plans (NEW!!) in their Assignment Notebooks!
• Please use the "Useful Documents" section to the right to download copies of the character traits bookmark and chart!

Here we are doing one of our warm ups!

Here's a video of our first song!

Here we are singing in French!

Manal & Andrew sang beautiful solos!

Here we are singing "Wake Me Up!"  The audience loved it!

Check out our moves with glow sticks!

End-of-Week Update, 1/10

Go, Josh!  He's one of this week's celebrity singers!

What we've been up to:

"Go!  Go!  Go!" we all cheered and yelled as our teams raced down the court towards hula hoops, picking up cards as fast as the speed of light (almost).  In P.E. this week, we did a New Years relay to collect years before the other three teams we were playing against.  For music, we played "Song of the Seas" on our recorders.  It sounded rough at first, but after we practiced more it sounded better and better!  This week in art, we made terra cotta pinch pots and "terra cotta" means "red clay" or "red earth."  In chorus this week Josh T. got celebrity singer.  Check out his picture with Dory above!  In writing, we're working on essays.  This week, we wrote mini stories for every reason for our thesis statement and a wrap up sentences for every mini story.  We also started writing parallel lists for each reason in our essay.  We sounded like Martin Luther King, Jr. because we repeated the same sentence stem for every item in our list.  Keep on the lookout for some awesome essays!  In reading, we read Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and thought about the main character's character traits - childish, immature, hyper, and persuasive.  We've been working on determining character traits in our own Readers' Workshop books.  In social studies, we learned about physical and cultural geography of the West.  We collected facts about the West to help us form an opinion about the region.  We learned about all kinds of fractions this week.  We added and subtracted fractions, compared them, put them on a number line, and ordered fractions from least to greatest.  We're getting ready for our fraction test on Wednesday!  But, perhaps the best part of this week was when we had our 3rd grade buddies from Mrs. Henneberry's class visit to do some multiplication practice games!  We all got a partner and played a fun game to help us review our facts.  It was fun to work together and we can't wait to get together again soon.  Check out the photos below!  Well, that's it for this week, readers!  See you next week!

What's coming up / reminders from Mrs. Adams:

• Our fraction test will be Wednesday, 1/15.  Please see the right side bar of the blog under "Useful Documents" for both the study guide and the at-home review packet.
• The 4th and 5th grade chorus concert is next Friday, 1/17.  Please review the information from Mrs. MacMurray about the concert times.  Also, please remember that Mrs. MacMurray has requested no jeans or athletic gear, so please be sure to dress your best!
• In the right side bar of the blog under "Useful Documents," you can find the new at-home character trait bookmark and the character trait chart that is found on the back of the bookmark.  Please feel free to download and print another copy if needed at home.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2014 to all our Room 20 families!

While 2014 has only given us one day together so far, we have a lot going on and a lot coming up in January - check it out!

We made resolutions!
Ask us about our specific and meaningful New Years resolutions!  We are ready to rock in 2014!

We're writing essays!
Our purpose as authors is to share our opinions and give reasons for those opinions.  Before vacation, we listened to a famous speech that's also an essay - Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.  We learned about how to make our reasons parallel, distinct, and supportive of our thesis statement.  Stay tuned for some impressive published essays in the next few weeks!

We're studying fractions!
We're working on lots of fraction topics including finding equivalent fractions, comparing fractions, solving fraction word problems, and adding/subtracting fractions!  This fractions test study guide will be coming home early next week and our test will be Tuesday, 1/14.  Keep in mind that as of now (1/2) we have not covered everything that is on the study guide.  An at-home study packet will be forthcoming!

We're studying the West in social studies!
We're starting to realize that this is a very varied region - in climate, geography, and economy!  Any photos or artifacts from a state in the West are welcome!

Our chorus concert is coming up!
Our concert will be on Friday, 1/17.  You will NOT be disappointed, promise!  Please check out the flyer from Mrs. MacMurray for more information.

Jared got a bunny!
Thanks for sharing these awesome photos with us, Jared!  Too cute!

Room 20 Playwrights!

We recently finished a class read aloud book, The Sisters Grimm!  To celebrate, we wrote scripts of our favorite scenes.  It's not easy being a playwright - you need to read lots of plays first, then write lines for each character and include stage directions to let the actors know what to do!  Check out our performances below!

Jack, Josh, Leo, and Noah performed the first scene in the book!

Will, Justin, Jared, and Andrew performed a funny scene with Mrs. Grimm!

Chase, Natalia, Gretchen, and Mani performed a scene with clever disguises!

Kileigh, Alexis, Caroline, Maggie, and Corrin performed an action-packed scene!

Cullen, Cormac, Josh, and Stephen performed the last scene in the book!