End of Week Update, 5/15

Yay for our Tanaya, celebrity singer for this week!

What we've been up to:

Room 20 packed a lot of fun and learning into this past week!

In math, we kicked off our study of geometry.  We learned about points, lines, and planes.  We can explain what makes a polygon a polygon and we organized our polygons into a "tree" chart to help us identify and classify them more easily.  We solved some tough riddles about quadrilaterals and classified triangles according to sides and angles.  We're studying more geometry next week!

In reading, we continued our work with mythology by creating "tableaus" of famous Greek mythology allusions.  With a mix-it-up group, we silently and motionlessly depicted different allusions such as "Achilles's heel," "Pandora's Box," and "Trojan Horse."  We performed in the "Kennedy Amphitheater" (space outside our back door) and got to guess other groups' allusions.  We also continued to work on figurative language this week, reviewing similes, metaphors, alliteration, onomatopoeia, personification, and hyperbole.  We created fun figurative language posters with teams and we'll use this knowledge to help us identify figurative language in our own reading next week!

In social studies, we continued our work with the United States by starting the final region - the American Southwest!  We've learned a bit about the landforms, famous national parks, bodies of water, and climate.  Each morning, Mrs. Adams puts up a mystery photo from the Southwest - it's a beautiful region!

We have been doing a morning meeting each day this week!  It's been a fun routine to start our day and greet one another in the mornings.  On Thursday, we worked together to create a dog out of our individual polygons and reviewed geometry terms!  On Friday, we made a "spider's web" of yarn and identified polygons as we "wove" the web.  We even did a MEGA MORNING MEETING with Room 21 one day!  We got to play "Museum" for our activity, which helped us get ready for our Greek mythology tableaus.

Check out these museum "statues!"

Kelli adds her polygon to the class "dog."

Woof!  Our class pet "Polly" the Polygon Pup!

Lots of polygons were created with our class spider web!

Next week holds lots of fun including tying our shirts for Tie Dye Tuesday!  Looking forward to another fun-filled and busy week next week!

What's coming up:

• We have end-of-year PARCC testing for math on Thursday & Friday (5/21 and 5/22).
• Please send in a white cotton t-shirt and hanger (see blue letter for details) by Thursday 5/21 for Tie Dye Tuesday!
• We would SO much appreciate volunteers for Tie Dye Tuesday (5/26) and for the Amazing Race (6/24).  Please see the orange letter for details and email Mrs. Adams if you are available.  We really do appreciate and need the help for these extra activities!  Thank you!

End of Week Update, 5/8

Happy Mothers Day to the ladies who made us who we are!

We had TWO celebrity singers this week!
Way to go, Tyler and Destiny!

What we've been up to!

It has been quite a busy week in Room 20 as we kick off May!  Mrs. Adams returned to JFK this week and we started a lot of new things.  On Monday and Tuesday, we enjoyed visits from our "poet in residence," Ms. Liz!  She is an author and performer of poetry and we are lucky (thanks to the awesome PCC!) to have her come and guide us as we write poetry!  We worked hard on writing acrostic, free verse, and haikus for our moms and grandmas for Mothers Day.  We tried to be specific and personal so that the poems were really special gifts.  We also learned how to perform / recite our poetry and how to consider the poem, the poet, and the people!  In the coming weeks, we'll be writing and reading lots more poetry in preparation for our Poetry Coffeehouse on June 12th!  We're looking forward to Rock Poetry day next Friday 5/15!

In reading, we started a unit on Greek mythology.  We've done lots of mix-it-up activities with Room 21, including reading all about how the Greek gods came to power, starting our new read aloud book The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan, and writing our own narratives based on the very humorous chapter titles in The Lightning Thief.  We wrote narratives entitled "A God Buys Us Cheeseburgers," "We Take a Zebra to Vegas," and "I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom" (just to name a few!)  Next week we're excited to read more of this suspenseful book and to do more mix-it-up activities with Miss Farrell's class!

In math, we studied elapsed time and learned how to find elapsed time in minutes and hours.  We also made and interpreted three types of graphs - line plots, bar graphs, and picture graphs.  Check out the fun line plots we created based on funny measurements like length of hair, length of index fingers, and more!  Next week, it's onto geometry!

This week was Teacher Appreciation Week and I felt like royalty!  From the homemade cards to the very generous gifts to the amazing contributions that all the JFK families made through the PCC events, I was once again floored at the show of support and gratitude shown to me and my colleagues.  Thank you ALL!  Much love, Mrs. Adams xoxoxo

What's coming up:

• This Tuesday (5/12) is our EOY (end-of-year) PARCC test for English Language Arts.  Your child will be testing in the morning and should come to school on time and full from a good breakfast!  Thanks in advance!
• This Friday (5/15) is Rock Poetry day.  A handwritten copy of song lyrics, completed questions, and a CD (or shared YouTube link) of the song are required for Friday.  Please have your child ask me for help if they have any questions!
• A bright orange letter went home with some important dates for the end of the school year.  They are updated on the side of our blog, too!  Please let me know if you have any questions about these fun events!
• A bright blue letter went home with information about a 4th grade tradition - Tie Dye Tuesday!  This is a fun activity and students will come home with a one-of-a-kind T shirt to wear to some end of year events.  Please send in a white cotton T shirt with a hanger by 5/21 so we can tie the shirts before the Memorial Day weekend and dye them upon our return!