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Sunday, December 13, 2015

December Update!

We finished The Sisters Grimm and celebrated in style!

Here's a sneak preview of some of the exciting things we've been up to here in Room 20!  Our student bloggers will be posting articles later this week with more details, but here are some highlights.

We're writing fiction!
Narrative writing (story writing) can be both real or imagined and we are diving head first into the world of fiction!  Check out some fiction "storyboards" for planning our stories below!

Ashley drew a storyboard of one of our mentor fiction shorts, "Frozen Fever."


We celebrated Fairy Tale Day!
We were so excited and proud to have finished The Sisters Grimm!  Stay tuned for exciting details about our special celebration!

We're dividing and applying what we know!
Long division is the name of the game in math lately!  We're also using what we know about division to solve problems and find prime and composite numbers using divisibility rules.  Quiz on Thursday (12/17), so check out the pink study guide!

Gabi and Brandi did a great job collaborating on some prime & composite brain teasers!


We're on a Great American Road Trip!
Our new social studies unit is going to be so much fun - studying the US regions and Washington, D.C.  Stay tune for some awesome pics and slideshows!  Got any cool postcards or family photos?  Send them in!

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Division HOW TO Video!

Hi everybody!  Today, we learned a new strategy for dividing.  It involves some multiplying and some subtracting to find your answer.  I made a short video of me solving an example problem to help you remember how to divide!  Use it to help you with your math homework and remember that homework is PRACTICE.  This is a new skill, so if it was easy and automatic, that would be surprising!  Remember,  you might not feel comfortable with division YET, but that doesn't mean you won't feel better after a few days of practice, which is EXACTLY what we've got in store for us this week (and next!)  Try your best and keep moving forward!




Sunday, November 29, 2015

Extra! Extra! Rooms 20 & 21 Press Release


As part of our study of fairy tales in conjunction with our class read aloud, The Sisters Grimm, students worked in cooperative groups, or "news teams," to create fairytale-inspired newspapers!  At our "press release" last week, students got a chance to read other teams' newspapers and give them specific comments and compliments in their "Letters to the Editors" notebooks!  It was a time to celebrate the hard work, cooperation, and creativity students exhibited in this short two-week project.



Students really flexed their writing muscles a lot in this project!  They wrote to entertain, inform, and persuade their readers through creating cover stories, ads, weather reports, and special features.  Students learned the difference in "voice" between a narrative of an event and a newspaper article of the same event.  Students also had the chance to grow their technology skills by using some of the more sophisticated features on Google Docs such as margins, font sizes, inserting photos and captions, and creating tables!  WOW!  When asked what they've learned from the experience of creating a newspaper, students' responses were varied and impressive!  Check them out below:

“The newspaper helped me and my team work together and it taught us about different forms of writing” -Ashley M. & Katie D.

“From creating a newspaper, we’ve learned how to inform, persuade and entertain” -John & William

“We’ve gotten better at working together as a team!!!” - Cailyn & Elizabeth

“We learned that working with a team is so much more fun and helpful than working alone.” - Ashley C. & Gabi B.

“From creating a newspaper we’ve learned to write a newspaper and you have to make it interesting. We have gotten better at typing from creating a fairytale newspaper.” -Abby & Gabby M.

“We have got better at creating newspaper articles, decision making and deciding on the weather advertisements.” -Dylan & Brandon

“From creating a newspaper, we learned how to create ads and do awesome cover stories as a team.” -Casey & Brandi

“I think we got better at typing doing the newspaper assignment. I think we got better at making tables on the Chromebooks.”- Ryann & Kayla

“From creating a newspaper, we are better when we work together. We’ve gotten better at fairy tales from creating the newspaper.” - Eden & Sam

“We’ve gotten better at using Chromebooks and creating a newspaper articles.” -Sydney & Julia

“From creating a newspaper, we learned how to type faster, work better in groups, to be creative with our writing and think about fairy tales. We also learned how to work tables and use snapshots.” -Sammy & Shane



“From creating a newspaper, we’ve learned more about fairy tales.” -Aria & Arianna

“We’ve gotten better at using teamwork from creating a fairy tale newspaper.” -Brad & Sam

“”By creating this newspaper, we have learned how to use our knowledge of fairytales in different ways. We have also learned better teamwork and gotten better at typing.” -Nate and Samir

“We learned how to be more creative by coming up with ads.” - Jasmyn & Brooke

“We have gotten better at using the chromebooks and working as a team from creating fairy tale newspaper.” -Michael, Ben & Nick



Check out the photos and be on the lookout for a tote bag of all NINE published newspapers coming home soon!  All families will have the chance to check out the newspapers and leave their own "letter to the editor" for our budding staff reporters!  










Wrapping Up Picture Book Month!



Two Skype visits with picture book authors completed our celebration
of Picture Book Month!

Fourth graders wrapped up Picture Book Month in a BIG way on Monday!  We enjoyed not one, but TWO Skype visits with authors of picture books - Michael Shoulders and Tara Lazar!

Michael Shoulders, author of many alphabet nonfiction books, answered lots of our questions about his writing process, how picture books are printed, and about the history behind some of his latest projects.  He told us about how writing is a lengthy process.  In fact, it takes him about a school year to write one book!  When we write nonfiction books ourselves, we'll have to remember how Mr. Shoulders told us that research and rewriting are two very important pieces in the process!  He told us that it wasn't easy publishing books, but it was so worth it!  What a great life lesson!



Tara Lazar, author of Little Red Gliding Hood, among other picture books, entertained us with a lively read aloud of her fairytale inspired book!  It went along perfectly with our fairy tale unit and it was so funny.  She even wore her PJ's and told us about the writing process from her point of view.  Interestingly, Ms. Lazar echoed what Mr. Shoulders said about writing being a long process with lots of revising and changing and going back and forth before the final copy is produced.  We are so excited to write our own fiction pieces after speaking with her!



As Picture Book Month comes to a close, I can only say that I have a renewed excitement for picture books as a teacher, reader, and mom!  Be sure to stop by the Barnes & Noble Book Fair this week at B&N in Bellingham for more picture book fun!  I'll be there with my whole crazy family reading one of my latest faves, so be sure to come by and purchase some books to help out fundraising for literacy at JFK!

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Brandi, John, and Dylan Celebrate Picture Book Month!

We've been enjoying lots of fun picture books this month at school and at home!  Check out some Room 20 families enjoying picture books together.

Brandi and her mom enjoy reading picture books at night!




John and his sister enjoy The Day the Crayons Quit and The Day the Crayons Came Home.  (Mrs. Adams does too!)



Dylan enjoys reading pirate picture books from the JFK library!


Thursday, November 12, 2015

Room 20 Celebrates National Picture Book Month!

Nate and his brother enjoy reading picture books together!  What is your favorite picture book?

Room 20 joins our fellow fourth grade readers to celebrate National Picture Book Month!  Check out the green letter that went home describing this special month.

We'll be reading special picture books in school and invite Room 20 kids and families to send in a photo of readers enjoying picture books at home!  Check out Nate and his brother reading If You Give a Moose a Muffin!  (This one is a favorite at the Adams house, too!)  Keep the photos coming and read on!




Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Student Blogger, Brandi - Weather Update


Check out this awesome song about the water cycle!  It's one of our faves!


Hi Families!  We are learning our first unit in science, WEATHER!  The class just finished learning about weather tools, air pressure, masses, and fronts!  Take a look at these slides.  You might learn a thing or two!



*Note from Mrs. Adams: We will be creating a Room 20 slideshow of our independent research on different weather topics!  Stay tuned!*

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Student Blogger, Sammy - The Sisters Grimm Puck Debate



Puck Debate


On Wednesday Mrs. Adams' class And Miss Farrell's class had a debate. It was about the character Puck from the book The Sisters Grimm. Puck is both bad and good. He had chances to kill to characters Sabrina and Daphne but he doesn’t. He knows Mrs. Grimm because in a s.o.s. letter Puck’s name was in it. Mrs. Farrell’s class and Mrs. Adams' class fought over if Puck was bad or good, though he did bad things he is just a kid.








Student Blogger, Sydney - Wordly Wise Theater



Wordly  Wise theater is a really good way to practice worldly  wise words and it's also fun to act stuff out and think of what you're going to do to act it out and most of them are funny to act out.We get to do it in front of Ms. Farrell's class with the big morning meeting it’s awesome. I love Wordly Wise theater .  










Student Blogger, Ashley - Google Doc Letters

Every week, we work on Google Doc letters for reading. We write to Mrs. Adams about our book.  We tell her on the Chromebooks what our progress is and what book we are reading next and also one of the topics Mrs. Adams puts on the board.


Saturday, October 17, 2015

End of Week Update, 10/16

An awesome puff mobile race in action!

October continues to be an awesome month for us in Room 20!  Check out some of our most recent experiences below.  Be sure to subscribe to our blog so you get updates each time we post!

Puff Mobile Race!
Our puff mobile race was a HUGE success!  Our class was the overall winners - Go GREEN Team!  Nate puffed their puff mobile to victory and made us proud!  All of our puff mobiles raced very well and the puffers and cheerers showed excellent engineering design work, cooperation, and sportsmanship!
























Haffenreffer Museum - Dig It! Archaeology Program
Our first of four archaeology visits from the Haffenreffer Museum happened last week.  Thanks to the PCC for such an enriching experience!  We learned about how archaeologists find clues about how people lived.  We learned about pottery seriation, tree rings, dig sites, and much more!  We'll use what we learned in our subsequent visits from the museum in which we'll learn about Native American cultures from around the US!

















Readers Theater
As part of our Sisters Grimm / fairy tale unit, we practiced (and practiced and practiced...) and performed fairy tale scripts and poems in our very first Readers Theater!  We worked to create a checklist of what a spectacular performance looks and sounds like.  We enjoyed poems from You Read to Me, I'll Read to You: Very Short Fairy Tales to Read Together by Mary Ann Hobermann.  We enjoyed "Sleepless Beauty" and "Jack and the Beanstalk Trial" readers theater scripts, too!  Miss Farrell and Mrs. Adams think we'll have to do more activities like this because we are amazing actors and readers!























We are learning, laughing, reading, talking, writing, solving, performing, and becoming smarter and stronger learners everyday! 

Morning dance parties get our days off to a happy start!

Problem solving in teams with math talk!


We've been sharing some of our most special possessions in Morning Meeting!

We got pumped up for our math quiz with "Eye of the Tiger" dance party!

We've been talking it up in math!

Advice for our Topic 4 math quiz!