Playaway

Today, Mrs. Stone, our school media specialist introduced our class to a new type of reading material.  They are called Playaways.  Playaways are prerecorded audio players.  This is what they look like:

Starting tomorrow, your child will be able to check out a Playaway from our school library.  Here's how to use the Playaway:
How to use a Playaway

How Santa Got His Job

Today, in Daily 5, we read the book How Santa Got His Job written by Stephen Krensky and illustrated by S.D. Schindler.  Then, we wrote quick writes to the following prompt:  "If I were Santa..."
Here are some highlights:

• I'd have to have a larger stomach as well as a bigger digestive system and bigger bladder (I'd be eating too much and would have to wait 24 hours to go to the bathroom) 
• A SUGGESTION FROM ANOTHER CHILD - make a pit stop at a house! Or, wear a diaper!
• I would help the elves make the toys because I am good at making toys, especially a pin ball machine out of Legos
• If I were Santa I'd make it rain chocolate
• I'd go caroling with children and make new words for the Christmas songs
• I'd wrap all the gifts - I also look good in red
• I would drink all the eggnog and hot cocoa and chocolate chip cookies
• I'd ride around on my sleigh when I'm not reading mail, sleeping, or helping the elves
• I would have special presents that you'd throw down the chimney that would change into what the kids would want
• I'd help feed the reindeer and wrap the toys
• I'd pay the elves $1,000.00 per minute
• The elves and I would fight the Grinch from stealing Christmas
• It does not matter about the cookies or the getting, it's about making people feel good and being happy!
• I'd sprinkle world peace like fairy dust all over the world.
• There'd be Christmas magic at each house!  All bad things would be forgotten for a day.  

Snowmen at Night

It's a flurry of fun in Petunia's classroom and the students have been working hard to bring on the snow!  Check out their snow people!

 To kick off the project, read the books Making a Friend by Mark Rosenthal and Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner.  If you haven't read these books, get to it!  Want to see the snowmen pictures in REAL life? C'mon on by!  

Last Friday, the 13th (!), we went over to New Hampton fish hatchery.  We stripped male brook trout of milt and female brook trout of eggs.  Did you know that a female brook trout produces 400 - 600 eggs per year? The hatchery has 1.3 million eggs incubating at any one time.  The eggs have an 85% chance of survival.
In addition, we climbed a mountain with Mr. Wetmore and discussed the watershed.  Did you know that there are many factors that contribute to the health of a river?  Human impact, erosion, and farming are a few examples.
With Ms. Allen (Petunia), we made river art to demonstrate out knowledge of the riffle, the run, and the pool.  The riparian zone is the area that surrounds the river. It prevents the banks from eroding, protects the river from trash, and keeps the water shaded and cool.

Mrs. O'Leary's Cow

Today we learned a song about the Great Chicago Fire.  Legend tells us that Mrs. O' Leary's cow kicked a lantern over at 9:30 PM on the evening of  October 8, 1871 and ignited the city of Chicago in flames.  After over a hundred years, in 1997, the story was extinguished and Mrs. O'Leary's name was cleared. We used this example of history to discuss rumors and fire safety.
Here's the song we sang today about Mrs. O'Leary's cow:

Late one night, when we were all in bed,
Old Mother Leary left a lantern in the shed,
And when the cow kicked it over, she winked her eye and said,
"There'll be a HOT time on the old town tonight."
FIRE, FIRE, FIRE!

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Today we read a book called Turtle in the Sea by Jim Arnosky. We also watched a video on sea turtles from Time for Kids online. Then, Petunia led us through a lesson on drawing sea turtles. Take a look at the bale of turtles below:

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Sundaes

We've earned sundaes!  Tomorrow we are going to have an ice cream sundae party.  This was something we had to earn as a team.  We had to work together to get 12 paper sundaes. After the 12, we get REAL sundaes!

In science, we've been studying rocks and minerals.  Today we learned about the streak test.  You can learn about the test here.

In math we took a test on unit 2.  We focused on patterns in this unit.

Social studies has had us exploring the globe!  We've used student-sized globes to learn about the continents and we've been working with atlases to find out about different features in a map.

Daily 5 has been pretty exciting!  We've been using ipads to read and check our comprehension.  We've also been reading a really interesting article on Alcatraz.  This has prompted us to write a summary.  Did you know Frank Morris and the Anglin brothers escaped Alcatraz?  Supposedly they are out there somewhere...Ask your fourth grader about the article tonight!