February Fun!

As we head out for February vacation later today, we wanted to share some fun photos from our week together!

We worked hard to finish the final copies of our essays this week!  We worked on the Chromebooks to type our essays, which included an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion.  Our job as authors was to convince, persuade, and change the minds of our readers.  We think we did a good job with that!  We included mini stories and lists to give our readers examples and try to make them agree with our point of view!  On Friday, we got together with our friends in Miss Farrell's class to celebrate our essays!  We gave our "speeches" from podiums and got to hear so many different essay topics - about pets, family members, fun places to visit, sports, hobbies, games, and so many other topics!  We laughed at some of the funny mini stories and had a great time sharing all of our hard work.  Check out the photos below!

Also this week, Mrs. Adams was completely surprised by a baby shower on Wednesday morning!  A big HUGE thank you to all of the wonderful Room 20 families for their generosity and thoughtfulness and to Mrs. Sawyer for organizing and bringing everything in!  Check your email for a photo / update on Baby Adams in the next couple of weeks!

Haffenreffer Museum Program, Inuit

Thanks to the PCC, we enjoyed a really special presentation by Mrs. Silvia from the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology in Providence, RI.  Her second visit to fourth graders was all about Native Americans from the Arctic and we learned so much!

We learned how Arctic people hunt for land and sea mammals, how they dress, what they do to survive in a severe climate, what their daily lives are like in modern times, and some special celebrations they have.  We played traditional Inuit games which were designed to help children develop hand-eye coordination for hunting!  We also performed a dance of thanks along with drum music (thanks, Alex!)  Finally, we all got to create snow goggles similar to the ones that Arctic people use to see through the blinding, blowing snow in the Arctic Circle.  Check out the photos and videos and be sure to ask a Room 20 student all about what we learned!  We're looking forward to two more visits from Mrs. Silvia this year about Native Americans from other different regions of the United States.  We can't wait!

January Wrap Up!

Welcome to February and Happy Groundhog Day!  Here in Room 20, we've been enjoying snow days, writing essays, thinking deeply about characters, and learning about our country and region.  Read about more details below!

In reading, we're continuing our study of character traits, both with our at-home reading (see the links for the Character Trait bookmark and chart on the right) and with our in-school reading.  We just started a new book, A Cricket in Times Square, and we're working hard on choosing specific and accurate character traits that we can back up with evidence from the book.  Check out our character trait posters below.  We'll be adding more to them in the next couple of weeks as we finish the book!

In writing, our essays are really starting to take shape!  We worked on collecting evidence for our three reasons in the forms of mini stories and parallel lists of examples.  We wrote mini stories to illustrate one time when each of our reasons was true.  Mini stories help give the reader a specific example of one time that the reason was true for the author.  Parallel lists, like the ones we observed in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, are powerful for giving lots of specific examples for the reader to see the many ways the reason was true.  Now that we're done collecting our mini stories and parallel lists, we're starting to draft our essays!  Hopefully we'll finish up this week and enjoy a publishing party soon - keep an eye out for pictures!

In math, we're still studying fractions.  We're working on adding and subtracting fractions with like (same) denominators.  We've learned how to simplify our answers to fraction addition and subtraction problems, how to use number lines to show how how to add and subtract fractions, and how to solve for "variables" or unknown values in fraction addition and subtraction problems.  Next week, we'll be learning more about mixed numbers and improper fractions and we'll take a Topic 12 test before vacation!

We wrapped up our heredity unit and took our test and now we're onto our next big social studies unit on the regions of the United States!  We started our study of the US with the Northeast, which also happens to be the region in which we live.  We have a lot of experiences in the Northeast - some of us brought in postcards and pictures of places we've vacationed or seen with our families and friends.  So far, we've identified the Northeast states, capitals, and postal abbreviations, learned about the important geographical features of the Northeast (like how glaciers shaped the land and some important landforms and bodies of water), identified major natural resources, goods, and services (economy) of the Northeast, and described the climate of the Northeast.  We'll be wrapping up the Northeast next week and moving onto the Southeast after vacation!

We've done some great technology work with our mix-it-up friends in Room 21!  We created short Google Presentations with a mixed-up partner about a specific Canada or Mexico research topic and presented them to each other using clear speaking voices.  It was cool to learn about so many different topics, like the Northern Lights, Day of the Dead, bullfighting, and Canadian sports!  Looking forward to creating more presentations soon!

As we kick off February, we're looking forward to enjoying a special "party-in-a-bag" snack on Friday, 2/13 to celebrate Valentines Day with Room 20 friends!  If anybody is interested in exchanging valentines, please use the class list to be sure every classmate receives a valentine.  This is, of course, optional!

End-of-Week Update, 1/16

Our study of heredity really blossomed this week!  We learned about an important scientist, Gregor Mendel, who studied tall and short pea plants and discovered "dominant" and "recessive" genes.  "Dominant" genes are strong and, if they're present, they determine the trait of an offspring.  "Recessive" genes are weaker, so they only determine the trait if no dominant genes are around.  Dominant and recessive traits came to life when we created fictional worm families called "gen-o-worms!"  Sounds funny, right?  We chose Skittles to represent genes and used our knowledge of dominant and recessive genes to figure out what color head, body, and tail our worms would have.  We also learned about animal adaptations and how animals have changed over time to survive!  We researched the behavioral and physical adaptations of different animals such as the lion, the great horned owl, the poison dart frog, and the caribou (to name just a few!)  Our heredity test is Friday (1/23).  Everything we need to know is on the study guide!

In math, we learned a lot about fractions!  We learned how to compare fractions with < and >, how to put fractions in order from least to greatest, and how to place fractions on a number line.  There are so many strategies we've been learning about and practicing to help with comparing fractions!  We've been using fraction strips, number lines, benchmark fractions ("easy" fractions like 1/2 that we're really comfy with), and the E.F.R. (equivalent fraction rule).  Our fraction test is Wednesday (1/21).  Everything we need to know is on the study guide!

In writing, we've made a lot of progress with our personal opinion essays!  We narrowed the ideas we generated with our "heart maps" to one important topic.  Then, we tried to think about what we really wanted to say about our topics to write focused thesis statements.  Thesis statements need to be an opinion (not a fact), need to be about something that is close to the author's heart, and need to be strong and specific.  We spent a long time working on really making sure our thesis statements followed these rules.  Then, we worked on thinking about the 3 biggest, most important, and most convincing reasons why our thesis statements were true.  We wanted to make sure our reasons were specific, distinct (different from each other), parallel (worded similarly), and supportive of our thesis statements.  We're still working on our reasons and will fill in more evidence for our essays next week!

In reading, we've been working a lot on identifying character traits.  Authors aren't really coming out and telling us that characters are "kind," "unpleasant," or "brave."  Instead, we're finding that authors leave little "clues" such as characters' actions, dialogue, thoughts, or behaviors and we can use those clues to help us determine exactly what type of person the character is.  Check out some of the fun picture books we read as we practiced identifying character traits!  Next week, we'll be using the character trait bookmark for our at-home reading (there's a link for downloading the bookmark on the right side of the blog!)

Next week we'll be starting a new read aloud book, a new social studies topic, and a new fractions unit!  Stay tuned!  

End of Week Update, 1/9

“Tweet!  Tweet!”  there goes the whistle!  It was boot camp and Mrs. Adams was the drill sergeant.  (She seemed to like the whistle a little too much…)  You’re probably wondering what we were doing in boot camp when we were supposed to be in school.  We completed "Essay Boot Camp" this week.  We had to drop and give 50 push ups.  Just kidding!  We had to write a whole essay in one sitting!  Our goal was to go through the steps of writing an essay and remember what makes an essay an essay (an opinion, three good reasons, and examples to prove our reasons).  We wrote essays about why Kennedy School is the best.  We think they're really convincing!  We also started thinking of essay topics that are close to our own hearts.  We're trying to choose topics that we have a lot of opinions about.  We'll start planning out our own personal opinion essays next week!

In reading, we've been doing work with non-fiction reading as a way of wrapping up our latest read aloud book, Little Dog, Lost.  We were so happy at the end of the book when Mark finally gets a dog!  It got us thinking about what type of dog would be best for our families.  We researched lots of different types of dogs using non-fiction books and online resources from Animal Planet.  We tried to think of what we need in a dog and what we can offer to a dog as well as all of the other people who live in our houses.  Once we compiled our research, we started to write non-fiction essays about what type of dog would be best for our families.  We started typing them on the Chromebooks and Mrs. Adams popped in to give us feedback as we worked!  We're hoping to finish, print, and share them with you next week!

In science, we have started our unit on heredity!  We've been learning a lot this week about the difference between inherited traits and non-inherited traits.  Inherited traits are those that you're born with and you inherit from your parents, grandparents, and other ancestors.  Non-inherited traits are not inherited and you're not born with them.  We played a fun game through the American Museum of Natural History's website (http://ology.amnh.org/genetics) that helped us to figure out which traits were controlled by nature  (inherited) and which were controlled by nature and nurture (non-inherited).  Then, we discovered six cool traits about ourselves and our partners (like the V-hand sign, hitchhiker's thumb, and dimples).  We decided that these are probably inherited traits.  Finally, we looked at pictures of different animals and named traits that they inherited from their parents and traits that they did not inherit from their parents.  Next week, we'll be learning even more!

In math this week, Mrs. Adams said we were starting a unit on fractions, but we didn't even start anything with fractions until Friday!  All week, we reviewed what we knew about factors, multiples, and prime and composite numbers.  On Friday, we started working with different colored fraction strips to find equivalent fractions.  We noticed that equivalent fractions had denominators (bottom numbers) that were multiples!  It started to make sense why we spent so much time reviewing multiplication concepts!  Next week, we'll do more work with fractions.

In specials this week, we were really busy!  In music, Ms. McComb started and taught us two new songs in chorus.  We also started bringing home recorders this week and we're supposed to practice 5 times a week for 10 minutes each so we can do well with Recorder Karate.  In PE, we played a Happy New Year game!  In Health, we learned about how to prevent diseases.  In Library, we read The Sweetest Fig.  And in art, we created Mexican tin folk art!

Lastly, for our first Mix-it-Up project of 2015, we met with a new partner to create a Google Presentation.  It's just like a PowerPoint presentation, but it's made in Google Drive!  We got to choose a specific topic about either Canada or Mexico to research using non-fiction books and then create slides with photos, captions, tables, headings, and sub-headings to share the facts we learned.  We're excited to finish our presentations next week and share them with each other (and you, our faithful blog readers!)

Check out the newly updated dates and stay tuned for next week's adventures!

Fairy Tale Day, 12/19!

We celebrated "Fairy Tale Day" on December 19th with our Mix-it-Up friends from Room 21.  It was a fun way to wrap up our read aloud book, The Sisters Grimm, and share the collaborative scripts we'd been typing on Google Docs with our mixed up groups!  We performed our scripts (complete with props!) in front of each other, watched a classic fairy tale ("The Sword in the Stone"), and even got to decorate our own crowns.

Check out the video below to hear our thoughts on writing and performing scripts, working collaboratively with Google Docs, and how figurative language helps us make scripts come alive!  Also, check out how many ELA standards we covered, all while having fun on "Fairy Tale Day 2014"!