What? Snow?

                     Ok, it really is April, right?  So what’s that white stuff falling outside!!!!!!!  Well, April Break is upon us, and here are some things we did this week in 4/5B!
    Today we visited the Middle School Science Fair and viewed some awesome projects.

Science Fair

  I had the class keep their eye open for projects about simple machines, as we are working on that unit as well. 

Science Fair

    Our Literature/Social Studies connection continues with the reading of the Green Mountain Hero book.  We will start Chapter 9 after the break.  We have made maps (still adding to them) of early settlements mentioned in the story, made connections to the importance of water to early settlements, have begun to discuss issues of fairness regarding native peoples and settlers claiming the land, as well as how different cultures are often shown in books.  We are working in a booklet to show some of these conversations in writing, question/answer formats, drawings, etc.  In Writing class this week, we developed a sense of what a constructed response looks like, and how to read and answer them carefully by using presented information.  We will complete this topic after the break.
    In Grade 4 Math we will finish up our Fractions and Decimal unit after break.  (Grade 5 is also doing decimals.)  My 4th grade math group has used interactive activities for reviewing and learning some of the concepts in the unit.  For more practice, they can log into Interactive Tutorial Games on:

http://www.free-training-tutorial.com/decimal-games.html

    Probably the coolest activity this week was our Science exploration into compound machines.  The students were paired up and their task was to take apart various compound machines and look for simple machines.  I included some pictures of the activity in this newsletter.  Enjoy!

Dissecting Machines!

Maggie and Emily working together!

  Tools were provided as were band-aids (if needed).  The students were excited and seemed more than happy to do this activity for 3 sessions, and are pretty good at seeing the simple machines in these gadgets.

Spencer contemplates, Nick works.....

Tabby.....a moment before she begins.

"Radio, nothing personal...but I'm tearing you apart!"

Max and Nathan:  serious business!

 Yesterday, Ms. Deb read to them the book titled:  How Do You Lift a Lion? which went over some of the machines needed to complete different tasks in the book.



Well, enjoy the break, and let’s hope we actually see more green than white!


    Thanks, Mr. B and Ms. Deb

    Greetings, and countdown to April Break?  The year is flying by for sure now, and I’m positive the Earth spins faster after March....maybe the Ides have something to do with that?  So here are a few things we have been working on in the classroom. 
    The 4/5B Tall Tales cd’s are almost ready to send home.  The kids are working on the covers now, and I will set up the list of what tall tales are on it to go inside.  They are very cool, and fun to listen to.  Enjoy!
     Our Literature and Social Studies are combined as the class listens to a book titled Green Mountain Hero, somewhat based on the life of a real family called the Story’s from Connecticut who came to Vermont in the 1700’s.  We have started mapping the journey of the father and son, delved into fairness issues about settlers and Native peoples, and are hopefully getting a fair picture of what life was like back then.  The class is keeping a work journal involving each chapter as I read it aloud, and they have various thinking questions and activities to do along the way.  We will be working on this after the break. 
    This week we are going to work on constructed responses in our writing, and are learning about what they are, how we understand them, and of course......how to answer them.  The kids did a research project with Ms. Deb on NYC and getting to special places using the subway. 
    We have continued our work in Spellography, and my group took the lesson outside (it was pretty nice on Thursday) with the Ipads last week.  Using the Blackboard app, the students looked for things and generated words on the iPads according to cluster beginnings and endings.  Saved a lot of paper that day!
    Our unit in Math on Fractions and Decimals is moving right along.  We will work in the decimal part of the unit this week, and may be finished either before break or the week after break.  So far, the unit has presented the students with concepts about fraction values, equivalents, determining fractions of a whole or whole number, and adding and subtracting fractions with the same denominator. 
    Practice of many of these concepts, as well as others in our math this year, can be attained using the free math sites:
a.   Math Is Fun  (http://www.mathsisfun.com/) or  the
b.  National Library of Virtual Mathematics (http://nlvm.usu.edu/)
c.   Illuminations  (http://illuminations.nctm.org/ActivitySearch.aspx)

    Our Science unit on Simple Machines is moving right along.  We have been using an online site named Edhead (http://edheads.org/activities/simple-machines/index.shtml) to investigate simple machines around the home.  It has been fun to use with the Interactive Whiteboard in class! 
    That seems to be most of what we have done over the last week or so. Until the next time!

    Thanks for all your help so far at home this year!   Mr. B and Ms. Deb