End-of-Week Update, 10/3

Room 20 had a blast learning about the Franklin Public Library on Friday!

What we've been up to:
What an amazing, busy, and remarkable week!  This week was full of fun projects, special events, and even a field trip.  Read on about what made this week so special!

On Tuesday, we were finally able to put our puff mobiles to the test!  The Puff Mobile Race was held on Tuesday afternoon and it was a thrilling time.  Our four puff mobiles (see team photos below!) performed well and our teams showed great sportsmanship, cooperation, and engineering enthusiasm!  We had fun, learned about engineering, and even learned about ourselves.  A great time was had by all!

This week was a special week in reading!  Destiny shared a book talk about Cam Jansen, we worked on visualizing plot and characters, and we had a special visitor from the Franklin Public Library come to speak to us on Wednesday.  Ms. Andrews, the assistant director of the FPL, taught us all about the awesome resources we can find online using our library cards.  We were so excited to use our cards at home (with our parents' supervision and permission) and, of course, to use them on our field trip to the library on Friday!

Our trip to the library was awsesome!  We took the bus with Mrs. Merten's class and arrived at the library around 9 AM.  First, Mrs. Rappa from the library taught us about the history of the library.  We learned all about the Ray sisters and how they built the library as a gift for their parents.  We also learned about the Greek architecture and designs that are found all over the library!  We had fun finding the three different types of columns (Ionic, Doric, and Corinthian) as well as the "egg and dart" design around doors, walls, and windows.  After we took a tour of the library, we created a door hanger craft with Miss Farrell's class and then it was time to use our library cards!  We had time to check out books, movies, magazines, and CDs.  Some of us used the "self check-out" counter!  We left with piles of treasures from the library.  Once we got back to our classroom, we had a chance to add to our "Someday" lists by looking at what our classmates checked out.  It was a great way to get psyched about reading!  Check out the photos below.

In science, we built our terrariums!  It was a rainy day, so we had to build them inside, but it was still lots of fun.  Our class and Miss Farrell's class built terrariums together.  We started with a scoop of gravel at the bottom for drainage.  Then we added just enough potting soil, planted plant clippings, and watered our terrariums for the one and only time before sealing the top with a lid or plastic wrap.  Mrs. Adams showed us this super old terrarium that hasn't been opened for 53 years!  Ask us how it's possible (due to the water cycle) for plants to survive in a sealed jar and never get watered.  Fascinating!  Check out the photos below!

This week in math, we worked on patterns - repeating number and shape patterns, tables, and finding the "rule" of different patterns using our math skills.  Our Topic 2 math test is next Thursday (10/9).  In writing, we've been working on finishing up our first personal narratives and we'll be starting new ones next week.  At chorus this week, Audria was named celebriary singer - we were so excited and proud of her!

Way to go, Audria, this week's celebrity singer!

If you weren't at Open House (or didn't see the sign), please subscribe to our blog!  You'll get emails when a new post is up and you'll be able to keep up with the latest Room 20 news.  See you next week!

What's coming up:

• Our Topic 2 math test is Thursday, 10/4.  Use the pink study guide to help your child in preparing for this test at home.
• We have no school on Monday, 10/13 for Columbus Day!
• If you have not yet scheduled a conference for October, please use the Sign-Up Genius link to do so.  Contact Mrs. Adams if you need help!

End-of-Week Update, 9/26

What we've been up to:

Woosh!  There goes another “puff” as our Room 20 students huff and puff and blow their puff mobiles along!  (Don’t worry, no big bad wolves were involved in the creation of these puff mobiles.)  If you aren’t sure what a puff mobile looks like, check out the photos above and you can see our puff mobiles in person next week at Open House.  Our engineering teams are hard at work redesigning and testing to be sure the puff mobiles are ready for Tuesday's race!

At PE, we had fun outside on the hill while playing “Rescue.”  In health, we shared pictures with the class that were hung up on a poster.  We also asked kids in the class for signatures for questions like “Do you play an instrument?”  “La la la!” In music, we practiced playing our recorders.  We played a new song called the “B” song aka “All Alone.”  At library, we were all absent.  Art was cool this week with “cool” color watercolors (hahaha).  It was the backgrounds of our leaf printings.

This week, we teamed up with Miss Farrell’s class to do some Readers’ Theater and we also read some more of The Sisters Grimm which is a very interesting book!  The girls’ parents vanished from the face of the Earth!  We wrote journal entries during housekeeping.  We heard Emma’s book talk about Jack Russell Dog Detective, in which she told us about the book but didn’t give away any secrets. 

Room 20 students have been working very hard in writing.  We’ve been talking and writing about leads.  We’ve been talking about grabbing the readers’ attention and making them want to keep reading.  We’ve been using dialogue, thought shots, poems, descriptions of the setting / character, facts, action, and onomatopoeia to start the leads.  We started drafting our narrative stories and want to start publishing on Thursday.

On Monday, we did problem solving with multiplication and division.  We worked in teams and tried to use "math talk" in our groups to help us share our ideas and listen to others'.  On Tuesday, we reviewed for the math test.  On Wednesday we rocked our math test!  Some students earned chips completing extra work for studying!  Overall, we were relieved when we took the test because we felt ready and it wasn’t as bad as we were worrying!  Check out some pictures below of the problem solving work we've been doing in teams!  

You’re probably wondering how the puff mobile race is going to go, but you’ll have to wait until Open House to find out!

What's coming up:

• Open House is this coming Thursday, 10/2 6:30 - 8:30.  Be sure to leave plenty of time to check out Room 20 and the hard work we've been doing!
• Our trip to the Franklin Public Library will be on Friday, 10/3!

End-of-Week Update, 9/19

For word study this week, we came up with synonyms, or
 "shades of meaning" for our Wordly Wise words!

What we've been up to:
We are completing a special week of 4th grade filled with fun new activities like Len Cabral, word art, engineering with Mr. Adams, and finding out about Mrs. Adams' baby!  Listen up for all we did this week...

We had a special visit from storyteller Len Cabral since we all did such an awesome job doing our summer reading!  He was just as amazing as last year and told us some new stories.  We learned a lot about storytelling, and therefore writing, from Len Cabral.  We noticed that he chose interesting, unusual, and funny parts of his story to describe in great detail.  These descriptions made us really pay attention and we were able to make a movie in our minds as he was talking.  Secondly, we learned that it's okay to "embellish" a little when telling a story as long as it isn't too ridiculous.  Last, we learned that even stories that seem boring or ordinary can be really interesting if you tell them just right!  We came right back from Len Cabral's visit and did some storytelling of our own using our own stories.  We also created timelines of our stories to help us as we start drafting next week.  Check out the pictures / videos below of Len Cabral (and Room 20 storytellers) at work!

In science, we had a special treat this week!  Mr. Adams (Mrs. Adams' husband) came in to teach us all about engineering.  He is an electrical engineer and he builds circuits for lots of different radar systems!  He taught us about how important teamwork is and how engineers work together to follow the design process.  He also told us about our first engineering project - a wind-powered "puff mobile" that we'll build with our team and "puff" across the gym.  We met with our engineering teams and started coming up with plans that fit the requirements.  We'll start building next week - we can't wait!

Mr. Adams showed us this video about why engineers' jobs are so cool!

He also showed us this video from NASA about the engineering design process!

In reading, we have been continuing to read with an active mind.  We started our first read aloud book this week, The Sisters Grimm: The Fairy-Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley.  We listened with active minds and already have a lot of questions and connections to the characters so far!  We're wondering what could have happened to Daphne and Sabrina's parents and want to find out more about their "grandmother."

We've been busy working with our Wordly Wise words - creating "word art" and thinking about "shades of meaning" (see picture above) with our words.  Next week, we'll spend some time sorting our words and changing them by adding different word parts!

In math, we've been continuing our work with multiplication and division.  We had the chance to play some multiplication fluency games (see pictures below) including "Buzz," "Multiplication War," "I Have, Who Has?" and more!  We learned some rules about "special quotients" involving zero and one and made "special news reports" about the rules.  We got a chance to be creative and show what we learned about division.  It was fun!

In music, we got our recorders!  Mrs. MacMurray taught us how to hold our recorders, how to blow into them, and how to play our first note - B!  We are excited to practice hard and earn our belts.  Also, in chorus Alex was named one of the first celebrity singers!  Go, Alex!  We had picture day on Thursday.  We also voted on whether or not we thought Mrs. Adams was going to have a boy or a girl baby.  We found out that most of us were right - the baby is a girl!  We think she should name her Dory...

Yay, Alex!  First celebrity singer of the year in chorus!

Stay tuned to our blog for more updates coming soon!

What's coming up:

• Open House is Thursday, 10/2 from 6:30 - 8:30 PM here at JFK - mark your calendars!  We're already hard at work on some projects and work that we'll be showcasing that night.
• There is no school next Thursday, 9/25 in observance of Rosh Hashana.
• Our field trip to the Franklin Public Library is scheduled for Friday, 10/3!  More information and permission slips will be going home soon.  

October Conference Sign-Up

It was so nice to meet many of you at the parent curriculum afternoon yesterday!  As I mentioned, a link for a sign-up for October conferences should be emailed out by Sign-Up Genius soon.  Here is the link for the sign-up in case you don't receive an email from me.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e0448aba92ca64-october

Stay tuned to our blog for more updates, photos, videos, and more towards the end of the week!

End-of-Week Update, 9/12

What we've been up to:
Our first week (and a half) of school have been awesome!  We met Mrs. Adams, learned about Dory's important motto "JUST KEEP SWIMMING!!" and we've gotten to work on a lot of things including math, reading, writing, and science!

In math, we've been mastering (WW word!!!) our multiplication facts and learning about properties of multiplication like the Identity, Commutative, Zero, and Distributive Properties!  We are playing new games and working hard to get used to our new EnVisions math materials.  Check out some photos of us completing a fun "Math About Me" activity on the very first day of school!

In reading, we've been focusing on choosing / reading "just right" books with Mrs. Adams.  We have started to choose books for our book bags and using the 5-finger test to make sure they're "just right."  We also worked with friends from Miss Farrell's class to read some fun read alouds of fairy tales!  We learned how point-of-view makes a big difference when telling a story.  Third person point of view is when a narrator (not one of the characters) tells the story and first person point of view is when one of the characters in the story tells what's happening using "I," "me," and "my."  We read The Three Little Pigs in both first and third person points of view and we wrote our own first person point of view version of Sleeping Beauty in cooperative "mixed up" groups with our friends in Room 21 after hearing the third person version!  It was fun to tell the story from the evil fairy's, the prince's, or Sleeping Beauty's point of view.  Check out some videos and photos of our cooperative group work below!

In writing, we have been showing off all we know about the writing process and how to tell a good story that captivates our readers!  We kicked things off with using photos to share some of our summer stories.  Stay tuned for more narrative writing in the next few weeks!

In science, we started our first unit - weather!  So far, we've shared our own interesting (or scary) weather stories and learned a bit about the water cycle.  Soon, we'll be building terrariums to help us observe the water cycle up close - we can't wait!

We also started Wordly Wise - a vocabulary word study packet that we'll complete for homework each night.  We learned 15 words this week including "master," "develop," and "lack."  We've already been spotting WW words in our books this week!

We have had all 5 specials (some of them twice!) and we've been hard at work already!  We have music homework due Wednesday and are looking forward to learning the recorder this year.  We created "earthworks" in Art on Friday out of natural materials.  Even though they're temporary, Mrs. Hess took photos to capture our creativity!  Check them out below!

Stay tuned for next week's update!