Happy Thanksgiving!

One of the things I like about using the internet here at school is the ways you can connect with other classrooms.  Our class has been working on a Thanksgiving Wiki with classes from Nebraska, Michigan, and Virginia.  Each classroom has their own pages.  Check out the wiki to see what we put on our page.  You can find it at http://thanksgiving-2011.wikispaces.com/

One of the things you will see on that page is this Animoto that the class made.  It is titled "We Are Thankful"



We also watched this YouTube video today:  

Happy Thanksgiving!

On-Line Math Practice

The key to being successful in math is knowing your basic math facts.  Currently we are working on multiplication of large numbers.  In order to solve problems involving two or more digit numbers you have to know both multiplication and addition facts well.  Later we will be working on geometry, fractions and division.  Mastery of subtraction and division facts will be necessary as well. 

Our class has been using two different websites to build math skills.  We have been using the website Xtra Math to work on basic math facts.  We are also using a website called Ten Marks.  This website allows me to assign skills in the areas we are studying at school.  Currently we are working on addition and subtraction, place value, basic multiplication and division facts, and multiplication of large numbers.  If students get stuck, they can ask for a hint or view a video to help them work the problem.

One of the big advantages for both websites is that students receive immediate feedback about how well they did, and what their mistakes were.  For each website, the students have their own ID and password or PIN.  When they complete work on the websites, I can see what they have done.  I can see which skills they have worked on and how successful they were. 

You can find the websites at:

http://tenmarks.com/    and

https://www.xtramath.org/

These websites can be accessed and used at home, and beginning next week, we will begin using these two websites as our homework on Tuesday nights.  I know that not everyone has the internet at home, so I will be conducting a Math Lab in my classroom every Wednesday and Thursday morning before school.  My classroom will be open to students beginning at 7:45 on Wednesday and Thursday mornings.  Students who need or want to work on XtraMath and TenMarks here at school can come to my class at those times.  They can enter through the cafeteria doors.  I will provide them with a pass, which we will glue in their planners.

I will also invite some people to Math Lab so I can give them extra help in Math Skills.  The more we practice, the better we'll get! 

Learning About Our World

One of the many things I love about Phillips is the Core Knowledge Curriculum and as part of Core Knowledge we have been learning about the mountain systems of our planet.  Mountains cover one fourth of Earth and are found on every continent.  We spent more than three weeks studying mountains through our Mountain Trek webquest.  You can see that at www.mountain-trek.wikispaces.com.  

We spent a long time reading, learning how to take notes, and writing.  We learned about organizing the information by main idea and supporting details.  Then we created our Mountain Trek Field Guides.  You will be able to see them when you come to parent/teacher conferences this week.  I have been doing this project for three years, and these are the best field guides I have seen.  

Our science unit, Earth Materials, is a perfect compliment to the Mountain World Geography unit.  So we have also been reading and learning about rocks and minerals.  On Friday, we observed mineral samples of quartz, calcite, fluorite, and gypsum.  Then we conducted scratch tests to determine the hardest mineral of the four.  Ask your student what they learned.

Next week we will be conducting experiments to determine which rock samples contain calcite.  

We have a lot going on in 4th grade.  Come to Parent/Teacher Conferences this week to check out some of the things we have been doing.  Also, don't forget about the PTA book sale that will be going on in the gym.

Books and Calendars

Last Friday we completed our big Mountain Trek Webquest when we turned in our Mountain Field Guides. This week we took a reading post test for our first unit in reading and the pretest for unit 2. Our classroom is always busy. To help parents know more about the things we are doing. I created a class calendar for important dates. Notice the tab labeled Calendar at the top of this page. I will do my best to keep this updated.

 Did you notice the Shelfari Bookshelf on the right hand side of this blog? Watch this shelf fill up with the books we are reading. The first read aloud book of the year was Fourth Grade Rats by Jerry Spinelli. To go with our mountain unit, we are now reading the classic book, Heidi by Johanna Spyri.

Paper Blogs

We have been learning about blogging and how blogs work.  A blog works kind of like an on-line journal, and they can be about just about any subject. People write about things they are passionate about.   Besides the fact it's on line and anyone can see it, one of the big differences between a blog and a journal is that ideally a blog should be a conversation.  The blogger wants other people to read their blog and make comments.

To understand how blogs work, we made paper blogs.*  Students wrote their first blog post on paper.  They glued their post to a poster and decorated it to make it look like a blog.  Then we hung them around the room. On top of the bulletin boards, on the white board, taped to book shelves.  We visited a blog by a teacher in California, Mrs. Yollis, and watch a short video that her students made about writing comments.  Their advice was to be positive and specific.

Armed with pencils and sticky notes we all moved around the room reading each other's blogs and writing comments on the sticky notes.  We stuck the sticky notes to the blogs.  Some people tried to sneak back to their own blogs to read the comments, but they had to wait until the end.  When we were finished, everyone got their own blogs back and got to read the comments that had been left for them.

Now we are ready to write our first blog post for our on-line blogs.   Soon you will be able to visit our on-line blogs at Kidblogs.org.  Here is the link to our student blogs:  Ms. Day's Class at Kidblogs.  Don't expect to see our real name though.  For safety, we made up screen names.  Ask your student about their secret identity.

* I learned about paper blogs from Karen McMillan, a teacher in California.  She is @McTeach on Twitter.

Our First Weeks of School

We have been working hard in 4th grade.   Our first project was our Top Ten Facts Posters.  This was a great way for us to learn more about each other.  Each person presented their poster to the class. Sometimes we asked questions.  It was fun to listen to everyone.  If you come to visit us, you will see the posters displayed in the hall above our lockers.

We started the year with pretesting in both math and reading.  For the first time ever, we took the reading test on line.  We used both iPads and laptops.  It was a little difficult since we were not used to the format, but the advantage was that each person could see their own results right away.  We will take these same tests again at the end of the term.

The tests help us to know what we need to work on.  In reading we are working on summarizing what we read. We are also talking about how to tell the difference between the main idea and the details that support the main idea.

In math we are working on multiplication and division.  All of the problems on our test are about problem solving.  We have been talking about how key words tell us how to figure out what steps to take to solve a problem.  One of the big differences between fourth grade math and the math they have had before is many of our problems require you to do more than one step to get a final answer.

We are learning about the mountain systems of the world.  We started our first webquest.  With a webquest you use the internet to research a topic.  You can see how we are doing our webquest by visiting our wiki;  Mountain Trek.  Right now we are doing the reading and note taking part.  Next we will create a field guide about one of the mountain systems.  Later this week, we will also begin our science unit called "Earth Materials."  That's one of the things I love about social studies and core knowledge;  it connects to everything.

You can see our webquest by visiting the Mountain Trek Wiki

This is a really great group of kids, and we will accomplish big things this year!

Welcome to Fourth Grade!

Click on the little triangle above to hear the Voki talk.

Don't forget to visit our class website at: http://msdays4thgrade.weebly.com/

Our New Class Photo

So have you seen our latest class picture? That's it above! Yes, we do look a little different than we usually do. These are our Avatars.

We have been using a new website called Bit Strips for Schools. Our first job was to create an Avatar. An Avatar is a picture or symbol to represent ourselves. Next we put our Avatar in a cartoon. We will be posting those cartoons on our Kidblogs, so check those out from time to time.

We are cartooning as part of our Being a Writer writer's workshop. The unit we are working on is called "Functional Writing." Functional writing includes recipes, writing directions, cartooning, and lots of other ways we use writing in every day life. We are having lots of fun!

Field Day

What a busy week we've had. Today was Field Day. It was cool, but dry, and the sun even broke through during part of the afternoon. Here are photos from some of my favorite events. We started out with the sack race.


We had a real test of strength with the Tug of War.


There was lots of action with the shoe toss, but watch out below, because you never know where they're going to land.


We ran some relays.


Partners raced with the Buddy Walkers, which requires lots of teamwork.


And you can't forget about the Water Balloon Toss.

Castles 2011

We had a very busy week with a field trip on Tuesday to the Des Moines Art Center, our castles were due on Wednesday, and we had Core Knowledge Night on Thursday. During the day on both Wednesday and Thursday, each member of our class presented their castle to the class. We interviewed them, and they told us about their castle, the materials they used, and who helped them.

We also did some more writing about our castles. This time we are writing a Castle Fairy Tale. We will post our completed fairy tales along with a picture of the castle on our Kidblogs. In the meantime, take a look at the Animoto above to see a video of all of our finished castles. We hope you like them.

Photo #37: The Book Fair

Class Photographer: Caleb W.

At parent teacher conferences there will be a book fair. There will be lots of books the here for all ages. This is one of the few posters the have hanging up in hallways. The books there are going to be new. You can purchase a book for your child's classroom if you would like to. The books here will not be very expensive. Your child may go and with you to there conferences if they would like and you let them. They may also pick out there own book . I usually go to my conferences and I go to the book fair every year and the selections are awesome and they are cheep . I love the book fair and it seems to get better every year. Both of my sister love the book fair to so everybody loves the book fair in my family. So we usually get very excited for parent teacher conferences . All because of the book fair.

Photo #36: Playing the Recorder

Class Photographer: Ashley

We play the recorder every week and we learn a new note every week too.But one time we learned 5 notes!I think that it is really fun because you can make cool and annoying noises to your parents,not the cool noises the annoying noises.You can do fun stuff but you can't use them as weapons to your sisters or brothers.If you have any animals they might get irritated especially puppies and kittens.There are funny notes that our music teacher plays too like a F note.There are a lot of notes I don't know how many there are but there are a lot.

Photo #35: Fourth Grade Castles

Class photographer: Caleb C.

This is one of the castles that fourth grade is doing.Both classes do a castle,and they put them in the place that holds all the castles and other medieval things.1 fourth grade class has done it,and the other class is going to do that soon too,because both classes do a medieval unit and make castles.There are about 7 more in the area that holds some of the medieval projects.This is one of the projects that fourth graders look forward to since the beginning of the year,because people like building castles.There is one castle that is made completely out of popsicle sticks,and another that was made out of sugar cubes,and the one in the picture was made of stone-like material.

Photo #34: RIF

Class Photographer: Mikey

RIF is when kids in school get a free book of their choice. RIF stands for reading is fun. It used to only be little kids that got books,but our PTA buys books for us. They have three tables,usually,if your in fourth or fifth grade you can choose from all the tables. If your lower than fourth or fifth grade you have to choose from one or to tables unless you have a higher reading level.

Photo #33: Mrs. Arends

Class Photographer: Travis

That girl you see in that picture is are nurse. Her name is Mrs Arends. I think she is great at her job. Becas if you get hurt she knows what to do for it so you are not in pain. That is why I like how she does her job. And if you need medicene she gives it to you if you need it. So now you know about are nurse THE END.

Photo #32: Our Fiction Piece

Class Photographer: Shaylah

Hi its me Shaylah again on Thursday we have parent teacher conferences I`d say and on parent teacher conferences they will read our fiction stories. We call it our fiction piece , mines called Lynette im sure youre parents will like yours. Mines called Lynette just like I said and mines about a vampire named Lynnette and a girl named Lisa the mysteriouse fiction piece is about a young girl named Lisa who was lost in the woods and had three myth creatures who are her friendsthere all her friends but not all of them are myth creatures well some myth creatures, Lisa found a vampire named Lynnette and becomes friends with her, Lisa just wants to find out is this a trick or are they really friends should Lisa trust a cold blooded and blood thirsty monster?, or should she trust a friendly vampire ? what should Lynnette be called ? . By the way I study Vampire`s and a Draculas and devils and werewolves and witches and ghouls and of course goblins and ghosts and the lochness monster and I study the hobbit and the UFO`s and all I alslo study greek gods and all that. Speaking about greek gods , I finished the whole series of Percy Jackson its really really really good and without one of my friends I wouldnt be able to finish the whole series some friends are just special like that there always nice and helpful and kind, most of them are polite . And by the way the fiction pieces are at phillips just to let you people know, and nobodys perfect nobody absolutly nobody, nobody at all by the way the thing is friends are special to me not to much if there not polite I like my friends the way they are im sure other people think so too, thats all I have for now bye, ps: I have some friends that are really really nice to me.

Photo #31: Coin Drive Poster

Class Photographer: Brooklyn

Evry year we do this coin drive to get more libiry books. In the libary we have to wait two weeks until we can check them out. I like to do the coin drive. All you have to do is bring in money. I also think it is fun. I do not know why.

Photo #30: Castles

Class Photographer: Skylar

Hi

I'm Skylar, this photo was about castles from the fourth grade.(mr.pugh's class)did a great job on these. Notice how much detail these kids put into these. when Mrs.day told me to go and take a picture I thought hum I think I will write about those castles, but when I saw them I noticed how detailed they were.

Then I sad that I wanted to take a picture of all of it because if I just took a picture of just one of those the people would miss out on a lot of details.

Photo #29: The Lunchroom

Class Photographer: Madison

The lunchroom is where all the kids come and eat there lunch that's why its called the lunchroom. You can either have cold lunch,Alternate lunch,Regular lunch or going out to eat. At the lunchroom you can socialize but you cant get to loud or else you have to owe your recess. Sometimes we have inside recess or you can outside recess. After lunch you have recess. In the lunchroom you can choose your side dishes sort of just like restaurants. At lunch it a lot of times gets loud. sometimes it gives people headaches. In the lunchroom there is rules just like at recess and in class. It is hard to concentrate on eating when you want to talk so bad but you got to remember when you go outside for recess you can talk as much as you want you sometimes get EXTRA RECESS! So when you get extra recess you can talk even longer. In the lunchroom there is lunch ladies. There is also this thing where you enter your lunch code so they can take money out of your account to pay for your lunch. Sometimes the 5th graders get there early and after they are all sat down we have to get up and dump our thrash in the trash can.

Photo #28:

Class Photographer: Rhiannon

This is are party for valentines day! We had it on a Friday instead of a Monday, which is valentines day.I guess the reason why they had it on a Friday instead of on Monday is probably because they didn't want everybody all grumpy. We had a blast at the valentines party even though it wasn't on Valentines Day,I bet every body thought "the sooner the better". Because there was lots and lots of candy,for games we played with the recess games!!! It was fun not everybody brought something but that's ok,it was so fun everybody, was happy and loud!!Everybody went home full and happy,especially me, but I didn't go home full!I only got to eat 5 of my candys before I went to girl scouts,when I came back the rest of my candy was gone,turns out I didn't shut my bed room door and my dog Dewee got in and ate it!!I really wasn't worried about him because he's ate many other things he wasn't suppose to,so that's that about the party and this is the ending.

Photo #27: Valentines Box

Class Photographer: Tyler W.

This box is a Valentine's box we could make a bag or a box. I made a box. I really like making crafts. You could put cards in them, well that's it. By.

Photo #26: Mr. Saunders

Class Photographer: Nolan

Mr. Saunders is our new P.E teacher and he is not one bit boring. He is the best p.e teacher we ever had .Today we played basketball and we had a blast. But he did not call any fouls on us or the other team but no won is perfect. He is a good man he lived in a lot of states but he moved here to live. So he is cool I like him I hope you like him to.

Photo #25: Looking Out the Front Doors

Class Photographer: Grayson

This is the front door of our school and it still is snowing here. And we can go and play in it if we have boots and last year some people built some snowmen. And it was fun because they built some big snowmen and when they were building it there was lots of snow and one time it took them like a day to finish the bottom of the snow man and some times the snow would fall and it would freeze and make ice and if that happens it would be hard to make a snowman. And in the front of the yard some of the sidewalk was so slick that you could fall on the sidewalk. And you can see the school perfect.

Photo #24: Paper Snowmen

Class Photographer: Kara

The picture that I took is preschoolers made snow men out of paper so I thought it would be cool if you saw there creations just like I did. Its cool how they can do creations like that. I think there real artists. You should like it, like I did. I hope you like it.

Photo #23: Class Library

Class Photographer: Travis

This is our library. that means that if we don't like OUR library book. we can look at our classroom library. Or if we didn't bring are book back we can read those over there, or if you get bored of it you can get a book over there, or if you like something over there go and READ.

Photo #22: Fifth Grade Posters

Class Photographer: Olivia

Fifth grade makes posters of the American Revolutionary War. They are neat. So when we are in fifth grade we will make them, but we are in 4th grade. When I am fifth grade I'll know a lot about the revolution, because I'm studying it now.

Photo #21: The Gym

Class Photographer: Hunter

This is our gym. We do all kinds of things like poisonball, scoccer, basketball and more. But first we do exercise, we do jump rope,jumping jacks, pushups, running to little marks and run back, and situps. Our teacher is Mr. Kare but you can call him Mr. K if you want.

Every year we need to do a 8 miled run and do tests to see how healthy we are.
when I was playing poison pin I got hit in the face and my glases fell off. we also have 2 teams of 14. My team almost loses every time.

Photo #20: Third Grade Self

Class Photographer: Mikey

These are third grade people. In third grade you make a person that looks like yourself. First you make a person that looks like you. Then you write something that you are good at in a speech bubble. Then if you want to you can color the background. Then you can brag about it to all your friends and family.

Photo #19: Mrs. Ellefson

Class Photographer: Ella

I chose this picture because I love to read books. This is Mrs. Ellefson our librarian. She works hard to help us find perfect books and check them out. Last week I checked out a book called Invasion Of The Plush Monsters it is good for people who want to sew. The book was cool because you can make cool things like alien purses, hats, slippers and toys. You can see that she lets/helps us get good books.

That's why I picked this photo!

Photo #16: Masks in the Art Room

Class Photographer: Caleb W.

These masks have been here ever since I can remember . But I can tell you a bit about them. Since our art teacher Ms. Rassmensen has been teaching us about masks we have looked at them, for example there are many cool masks in this picture like the one that looks like a evil person that is my favorite one. We have also been studying Grant Wood an Iowa artist he makes lots of landscapes of Iowa they are very good . Now I do not know who made these masks . But I do know that some of these masks come from Africa. So they have to be old

Photo #18: Our Star Students

Class Photographer: Caleb C.

This is our schools' star students display. Whenever you earn a set of 20 paw prints,you get to post a star, but only if you are in kindergarten, first grade, and second grade.If you turn in 60 paw prints, you can have 3 different stars, or you can put them all together and make a star burst. If you are in third, fourth, or fifth grade you get entered in this thing called breakfast club, which everyone who is in the upper grades and turns in a set of paw prints, you can get your name drawn have breakfast with the principal and the counselor, and your name stays in the drawing,so you might get picked to go again even if you don't turn in another set.

Photo #17: Our Social Contract

Class Photographer: Justin

We have been using computers a lot. One thing we did was a word cloud. We went to Image Chef.com and put in words that described our personality. We all chose words that said how we would treat each other. Then Ms. Day wrote a little note about it. It said "This is what we want in our classroom ,and we will all do our part." It had words like fair, respect, nicely, friendly, helpful, and peaceful. After that we all signed the contract. Even Ms. Day signed it. That`s how we are treating each other today. It`s still hanging up on our classroom door!

Photo #15: Our Class Blogs

Class Photographer: Sebastian

Our class blogs are where us as student can write on a blog. We all have our own passwords. We all have are own blogs. We all have posts on our blogs. Some published some not. An example is our personal narratives. Also on special ocasions like when one of us go on a vacations we can write about that vacation on the blogs.

Photo #14: Vocabulary Words

Class Photographer: Vicente

This is a picture of our vocabulary words for the week. Every week Ms.Day changes the words for the week for what we have that week. The words on the chart are the vocabulary word for that week. We have to put them in one of are journals. and we keep doing that every week I guess are journal is full. Some times we have more words than we have the week before. We do not do the words every week. The chart has the meaning of every word on it.

Photo #13: Lego Club

Class Photographer: Drake

Lego club is were you can build things.Like in this photo.This is my car and another car too.In Lego club you can build whatever you want.The first day you have to make a car then you can build whatever you want.as you can see the yellow thing on top is a yellow brick.It powers the little motor that what makes it run.It can go lot of ways how? A black thing that connects the yellow brick.We call that thing a connecter .A connecter can go any way you want it.But you got to face it the right way to make it work. A teacher help us too. Her name is Mrs.Prior-Sweet. she is very kind to us. We have Lego club every Monday.At 3:00 to 5:00.You can do thing with your friends too.It is very cool with a yellow brick.there are tubs with legos.

Photo #12: China

Class Photographer: Brooklyn


I WENT DOWN STAIARS AND TOOK A PICTURE AND ITS RELLY COOL. THEY HAVE SOME COOL STUFF HANGING UP IN THE HALLWAY. WELL I THINK IT IS COOL AND IT IS AWSOME TO ME. SO I THOUT ALOT OF PEOLPLE WOULD LIKE THEM. SO I DECIDED TO WRITE ABUT IT.

Note: The second graders at Phillips learn about China for Core Knowledge.

Photo #11: Masks

Class Photographer: Shaylah

Its me Shaylah and I'm going to talk about masks, we make masks at art for fun there not famous or anything, I told my cousin and she said I could where it for Halloween so i wont be cheep and I'm not cheep so I might where it but I'm wont be cheep and I might not but I'm still not cheep so my mask looks like : has fangs red cheeks and angry eyes and a skinny eyebrow, and every single mask is special in a different way they can be: tall skinny fat anything as long as you want it to be then i told Malena I'm not cheep and i might by my own suit for Halloween then she said NO WEAR THE MASK OTHER WISE YOUR SPOILED ! then i asked her am I SPOILED OR CHEEP then she said I'm both and she crossed the line that's all i want to say because me and her always argue!! :P . So now me and my cousin a would argue and get along argue get along why did mischief have to come WHY????????

Photo #10: Northeast Region State Posters

Class Photographer: Katie

In social studies we are studying on the Northeast region. The states that are in the Northeast region are Vermont, New York, Pensylvania, New Jersy, Connecitcut, Rhode Island, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, and New Hampshire. And we have to pick a state and write about it on a piece of paper. We have to write about the plant and animals,history,land and climate,natural resuorces,and write top ten facts.I put facts like the state's bird,flower,and the state's tree.And we had to draw the state and put some citys and rivers on the state and color it in. Also we put the state's name and nickname like Vermont nickname The Green Mountain State.