We had lots of fun working on our reading projects!  What a wonderfully creative group of kids! 
The project was to make other people want to read their Guided Reading book.  Students chose how they wanted to share their books.  They wrote their own scripts, came up with props, and costumes all on their own!
We got permission from all the parents to post our book projects on Youtube so here they are!

This group chose to try and do a movie trailer. 

This group did a news report in which they interviewed the characters from the book.

This group made a pop-up book- Each child illustrated a different scene from the story and told what important thing was happening in that scene.

This group made a short movie of a scene from their book.

I hope you enjoyed our projects! 

     I have to share this just because it's so cool!  I mentioned to you earlier that we were learning about figurative language.  Well, the students absolutely loved this unit and are noticing figurative language EVERYWHERE! I never realized how many idioms and hyperboles I use! I get the biggest kick out of it when one of my students say, "Mrs. Fox that was a hyperbole,  You didn't say it a million times!"  I created a chart for students to share the figurative language they noticed while reading.  They filled each line of the first chart so I added a second one below, and now they are totally covered with multiple layers of post-it notes because we ran out of room!  We can hardly read anything anymore that a student isn't jumping up out of their seat saying I've got that one!  Grabbing a post it and adding it to the collection!  This is what our chart looks like now- I'm going to try and leave it up until the end of the year and see how many more post-its get added!  (although we might run out of post-it notes at the rate we are going!)

     In Science, we are doing an energy unit.  We've learned about potential energy and kinetic energy.  As apart of that learning we did an activity called Race The Distance.  Students released cars from different heights and recorded the length the cars traveled.  We averaged distances and discussed variables.  Then students were asked to use scientific reasoning to explain 'how increasing the distance the car rolled down the ramp affected the distance the car traveled'.  They had to make a claim, use the evidence they gathered to support their claim and provide reasoning to support their claim just like real scientists.  To make this activity more fun for the kids we did the data gathering with the 4th graders in the class across the hall.  (So there may be a few faces you don't recognize in the pictures!)  (More pictures and video on our class Schoology page!)

 

In social studies, students are learning about Native Americans.  Students have each selected a region of the United States and they are researching to find out about the Native Americans in those areas. 

 Students are using many resources to collect data.  Our Social Studies books, other non-fiction books, and online articles.  While doing our research we learned and practiced how to open up new tabs and windows and learned how to toggle from one to the other.  This helps the students to gather information and record information easier.  It is was tough for them when we first started but as we practiced they got quite good at toggling between both screens, and many of them learned they could also adjust their open tabs so that they could look at two screens at one time.  This technology skill we are sure they will be using for the rest of their schooling!

We also want to congratulate the three students that represented our class in the school geography bee.  We are so proud of them!  All three of them made it through the first round and into the second round!  They did a great job!

**More pictures and info available on our class Schoology page!  If you have a student in our class make sure you look there!

It has been such a busy week it will take me a few posts to catch up!

 This past Monday we had the Cromwell Center come into our class and do a disability awareness presentation.  We first brainstormed and talked about what we thought a disability was, and then we did some activities to make us all more aware of what it might be like to have a disability. 

 I took a couple of pictures of the students participating in the program.  Instead of trying to explain the program here I bet if you ask your child about the pictures they can tell you what they are about or what activity we were doing!   (More pictures of students on out class Schoology page!) Ask them about: The picture activity,

 The Origami Cup Activity, 

and The Dots Activity!

(All of those pictures are on our class page!)

We also sent home a letter about it.  If you didn't see it you might want to check your child's backpack!  

Here is a link to the Cromwell Center if you would like to know more. http://cromwellcenter.org/

Last Friday we started building our volcanoes! 

Thank you so much to the parents that sent in materials!

Students used newspaper to build the bases on some meat trays and then we got to paper mache them!

It was a bit messy, but we had a lot of fun!

I managed to wash my hands and run from table to table to snap some pictures before getting my hands
I hope I got a picture of all of the students! (Look at our class Schoology page to see the pictures of your kids!)

We will give them a few days to dry and then our plan is to paint them this week.

 If all goes well we will erupt them next week!

    As a part of our learning about volcanoes, we did a 'Mystery Science' activity in which we explored the question:  "Could a volcano pop up in our backyard?" We had a really great conversation about this!  We learned about a farmer that had a volcano pop up in his backyard and even saw pictures of what was left of his village.  Most of the buildings were buried with lava, so now there are only some roofs showing!

Next, as a part of trying to answer our question if a volcano could pop up in our backyard students were given one of 4 maps and a coordinate sheet.  They used these to plot locations where volcanoes had erupted. The students thought it was cool to see where the volcanoes where and what years they erupted!



 I've included pictures of the students working with their partners to plot their volcanoes on our class Schoology page.

 When we were done, we put the maps together and made observations.  Students were quick to notice that not only were most of the volcanoes found near the coast, but they were also grouped in a way that formed a horseshoe shape.  We learned that this was called the Ring of Fire.  We were happy to see Maine was not part of the Ring of Fire, so chances are we won't have a volcano pop up in our backyard!

This was a short week!  Hope Everyone is enjoying their snow day! 

(The kids sure enjoyed the snow during recess on Monday!) 

We are hoping all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving break, and that you are able to spend some extra time together relaxing, feasting, and enjoying family and friends.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Fit For A Feast!

was last week and what a wonderful event it was! 
We started off with getting some exercise. We had an obstacle course set up in the school for that.  Kids and many of their parents had fun running, jumping, zig-zagging through cones, hula hooping, beanbag tossing, hopscotching, ring tossing, finding their way through a big paper maze, and leaping over hurdles!  Most of the kids I talked to said the best part was running in the halls and having teachers cheer them on!
After running laps, we all got together to talk, laugh and celebrate friendships, and family while sharing a Pot Luck dinner

We were so excited to be able to cheer on Jonathan, Kara, Brailey, Emily, Emily, and Ella!  Yes, not only did we 'catch them' running in the hall but got evidence!  Click on the links in Schoology to see them clearing the hurdles!

**Because of the snow day today we will postpone our spelling test to next week.  We will take it on the Tuesday before our Thanksgiving break.