January News

     The students did an amazing job with creating their habitats. The next day after the Open House, we traveled to see all of the habitats and the student's that created them were our tour guides. They learned so much in such a short time. Thanks for coming out for the Open House.
     Report cards are coming home today in their Friday folders. If you have questions please give me a call or you can send a note or email.
     Valentine's Day will soon be upon us. The fourth graders have a standardized test in the morning called NAEP.  Student Leadership is planning some events for us for that day. In the afternoon we will be having an Author's Tea with the other fourth grade to share and celebrate our writing from this quarter. We would love to have snacks and drinks to share. If you can send in food please let me know. We will not be passing out valentines though. Thanks.
     In math we have been learning about prime and composite numbers and why they are prime or composite. We have been learning about interpreting graphs and the language of graphing.  We also taught our buddies how to play Yahtzee last week
    In writing we have written usually three of each kind of poem and then put one poem into final copy for their book. So far, they have written haikus, limericks, weather cinquains, winter poems, concrete/shape poems and color poems.
    We received our second pen pal letter from our Calais pen pals and wrote them back this week.
     In Four Winds we learned about air. First Margaret and Sara did a play. We also did lots of experiments. We put an egg on a bottle and inside the bottle there was fire. Because the air inside the bottle was hot, the air wanted to escape. So the egg fell through and the hot air went out. Then to get the egg out we poured hot water in the bottle.  Then the hot water warmed the air on the inside so the egg fell out again because the air wanted to escape. Then we made the parachutes with garbage bags. The weight was a washer. Then we went outside and launched then off the playground slide and timed how long it took them to get to the ground. We also made skits and the class had to guess what we were doing with air. After we got to keep little pieces of paper that can fly. (written by Payton and Claire)
     In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day we say a video about his life and talk about prejudice. Then we saw a video that explained how races came to be, how people develop prejudices and how people are working to over come prejudices.
     In social studies we have been learning about hemispheres and latitude and longitude.  We made popsicle stick props to help to learn some map terms.  On one side is written the words latittude and longitude, the backside has the words meridian and parallel and whether they are measured with N,S, E or W.  Here are some photos to show you what they look like.