Four Winds-Water Cycle by Jacob

      Many thanks to Sara Kirby and Margaret McCoy for leading us in a great Four Winds on the water cycle. We tried to put as many drops of water as we could on a penny, and we tried to make a paperclip float with a fork. There were groups of two that were trying to dry a rock by either blowing on it or fanning it. There was a container with a lid that had hot water in it, and at the end it was filled with steam.

\

Hink Pinks by Ari

    Our class has been writing Hink Pinks since the beginning of the year. They are very creative with them and have produced an abundance of them. Ari wrote this post to tell you about them.

  Hink Pinks are words that rhyme with the other word next to it. For example: Smelly President: Stinkin Lincoln, or Beautiful Cat: Pretty Kitty, and a  Playful Star: Fun Sun. 

Hink pinks are fun to do and are creative making hink pinks. When you make hink pinks the person can keep on making them. They are fun and when the person asks and asks they might never get it right. But one time the whole class got the hink pink right.

When the person whispers into the person who made its ear, they ask what it is and then if they get it wrong they say no or if they get it right they say yes.

More than one person can do hink pinks even teachers can. They are so fun that they bring joy in life thats why you should do it at home too.

What is a Bird cube?:

What is a Pig women?:

What is a Bird yard?:

What is a Salmon plate?:

Vernal Pool

          On Wednesday before vacation, Larry Clarfield from the North Branch Nature Center came to school to talk to the fourth grade about vernal pools and their importance. Students learned what a vernal pool is, what animals live there and why animals migrate on the first warm rain after the snow is gone.  It is called the Big Night. Larry showed slides, they listened to the calls of Vermont frogs and they got to see a spotted salamander.

     The next day I read students the book called The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown.  We analyzed the structure of the poems and then students wrote their own poems about why vernal pools are important. They did an awesome job! Please read them below.

Vernal Pool Poem

By Payton and Carmen

The important thing about the vernal pool

Is that it keeps frogs and salamander safe.

Vernal pools come in the spring.

Fish like to eat the frog’s egg.

Frogs and salamanders lay their eggs in vernal pools.

A vernal pool will start as a puddle

And get bigger and bigger and bigger.

Frogs must hatch fast and leave

Soon the vernal pool will dry out

So if fish lived there they would die

‘cuz there wouldn’t be any more water but

The important thing about the vernal pool

Is that it keeps frogs and salamander safe.

Vernal Pool

By Jacob and Dylan

The important thing about the vernal pool

Is amphibians go there

Frogs lay their eggs there

It only comes in the spring

Fish can live there

It is home to many different animals

Some vernal pools last throughout the summer

It starts as a puddle and gets bigger but

The important thing about the vernal pool

Is amphibians go there

Vernal Pool Poem

By Ari

The important thing about the vernal pool

Is that it gives amphibians a home

It starts out as a small puddle

It gets bigger and bigger and bigger

Until the summer comes

And it dries out

On The Big Night frogs

And salamanders cross the road

To get to a vernal pool

Frogs lay their eggs there

So fish can not eat them

As the tadpoles grow into adults

The vernal pool dries up

And the frogs and salamanders leave but

The important thing about a vernal pool

Is that it gives amphibians a home.

Vernal Pool Poem

By Claire and Jordan

The important thing about the vernal pool

Is it’s only in the spring

It helps lots of amphibians for a place

To go on the Big Night

The Big Night is the first rain after

The snow has melted

The pools starts out really small

And gets bigger

Frogs lay their eggs there

‘cuz fish can’t eat the frog’s eggs

‘cuz there are no fish living there

If we didn’t’ have vernal pool

We wouldn’t have frogs

It’s a home to many eggs but

The important thing about the vernal pool

Is it’s only in the the spring

Vernal Pool

By Damian

The important thing about the vernal pool is

That amphibians go there to lay their eggs

Frogs go there to lay their eggs

It’s a home to lot of animals

Fish can not eat their eggs

Salamanders lay their eggs in a vernal pool

In the summer a vernal pool

Will dry up

Vernal pools are just big puddles

But the important thing about vernal pools is

That amphibians go there to lay their eggs.

Vernal Pools

By May and Olga

The important thing about the vernal pool

Is that frogs live in them

They lay their eggs in water

That doesn’t have fish

They only come once

Winter is over

Then the puddle dries up

There are lot of amphibians there but

The important thing about the vernal pool

Is that frogs live in them

Vernal Pool Poem

By Caroline

The important things about a vernal pool

Is that it gives amphibians a home

It starts out as a small puddle and

Gets bigger and bigger and bigger until

The summer comes and

It dries up

On The Big Night frogs and

Salamanders cross the road

To get to a vernal pool

Frogs lay their eggs there

So fish can not eat them

As the tadpoles grow into adults the

Vernal pool dries up and

The frogs leave

The important things about a vernal pool

Is that it gives amphibians a home

Week of April 1

     Last week in reading I read students the book  Once Upon a Fairy Tale.   It takes several fairy tales and tells them through different character's point of view. For instance, in the story Little Red Riding Hood, I read them the story through the eyes of Little Red Riding Hood, LRRH's mother, the wolf, the woodcutter, and the granny.  I used this book to practice the skill of finding evidence from the text to draw conclusions. Students had to decide which character I was talking about and the evidence that they based their decision on. 

     Students have chosen new reading and writing goals for the last quarter.  I will share them with you at parent conference. Today we will be looking at calendars and planning if this is due here, then you need to start your project here, etc. The calendars will be in their binder. Feel free to ask them to show them to you and make a copy for the 'frig or your family calendar.

     One of the reading goals this quarter is to read a biography. We chose these from the library the week before. During silent reading students read their biography, took notes and then shared them with a partner.  Eventually, we will be writing a report and creating a puppet to share their report. 

    One of the mini lessons was on how to determine the meaning of a word if you don't know it.  Now when students put sticky notes on a word they don't know they are to use one of these strategies to find the meaning. The strategies we discussed are:
     -Using the context-read the words around it sometimes they tell you the meaning of a word
     - Substitute or guess a word
     -Use word parts to determine meaning (undoable-not able to do)
     -Greek/Latin roots (cardi=heart, a cardiologist is a heart doctor)
     -Use the dictionary
 
    In writing we have been typing the animal reports that we will give our buddies. One of the major focuses of this unit was writing a main idea and supporting it with details. They created a glossary with words they thought might be hard for their buddies,and made an illustration and wrote a caption. Students found and printed images. They did a dedication and an about the author page.  When they are all done, we will read and present them to our buddies. The fourth graders will also have their own copy so they can read them to you also.

    In social studies the students' final project for the Abenaki was to take all of the information from their binder and create a flipchart. Each section of the flipchart was a different category about the Abenaki. They wrote a paragraph about each category and illustrated it. These are in the hallway for you to see. We have one final activity that we will do this week. You'll hear more about that later.  Our next unit will be Vermont history.

     In math we have been learning how to round any number to tens, hundreds or thousands. They have a little poem in their math notebook to help them remember what to do. We have been learning how to do division with one digit divisors and what to do with the remainders. For instance, if the word problem was how many cars would they need to go on a trip and the answer was 14 R6 then they would need 15 cars but if the problem was how many lollipops would the each get then they would get 14.  We are also continuing to work on  the metric unit of measuring.
    

Mini Metric Olympics

Happy April!
On Monday we did the MINI METRIC OLYMPICS! We were learning about how to estimate and do metrics. We had 5 groups,
Sponge Squeeze, Paper Plate Discus, Cotton Ball Shotput, Marble Grab, and Straw Javelin. Congrats to Claire for winning the Sponge Squeeze(85ml), Damian for winning the Cotton Ball Shotput(626cm) and the Paper Plate Discus(cm), Jacob for winning the Straw Javelin(cm) and last but not least Caroline for winning the Marble Grab(190gm). The Metric Olympics were very fun and amusing. 
Written By Claire