All for Books

Donations for the All for Books program are due tomorrow!  In class today, I said that donations are due Thursday instead of tomorrow, October 30th.

Weekly Update

What a busy week!  We kicked off the week with our field trip to Babler State Park!  I had a lot of pictures, so I wanted to post them in their own post last night.  This week was also Red Ribbon Week!  Mrs. Maddock came in to talk to us about the dangers of drugs and alcohol.  Furthermore, we learned that we even have to be careful with coffee and energy drinks that have large amounts of caffeine and sugar.  On Friday, we met with our buddies and made Pumpkin Glyphs!  They are hanging in the hallway with other pieces that you can check out during Parent-Teacher Conferences next week!  

Also in the Halloween spirit, this week we got to work on our Halloween packets for morning work instead of a daily edit or math sheet.  

Math
This week in Math, we have learned how to find the mean, median, mode, and range in a set of numbers.  Ask your student the trick that they use to remember the difference between these four terms.  We have learned many different tricks.  Also, this week we learned how to make a line plot.  We even got to challenge ourselves with basic fractions, as one data set used halves and fourths!  

This week in our Activity rotation, we created a meal plan for a family of four for 5 whole days!  We worked with grocery ads and a budget of $50.

For second quarter in the Technology rotation, we are focusing on a program called StudyIsland.  Last quarter, we practiced our facts on XtraMath. 

Reading

We continued our fiction unit with discussions of story elements.  In reading groups, we are looking at the October Scholastic Storyworks magazine.  Additionally, we have started our new read aloud, Missing on Superstition Mountain!

Writing/Spelling 

We are almost done revising our realistic fiction stories to prepare for editing!  In Spelling, I have decided that all students will work on homophones.  In reviewing students' writing, I could tell that these are tricky for us!  However, students are doing great with our first study of homophones!  Students received their first set of homophones this week.  Their Spelling test will be next Thursday.  We are having fun learning about homophones!  Check out some of the activities we participated in below.  

Sorting words by homophones

We created pictures and symbols to help us in remembering the correct uses of homophones. 

Science/Social Studies

We learned a lot on our field trip on Monday!  Then, we continued our study of Missouri in Chapter 2 of our Social Studies textbook.  We are currently learning about different cultures that can be found in Missouri.  We also read about many different festivals that celebrate these cultures.  

Other Important Info.

You should have received report cards this week.  Please let me know if you did not receive an email with your child's report card.  I look forward to meeting with you on Monday or Wednesday of next week for Parent-Teacher Conferences.  Our Halloween Party will be next week on Thursday.  The costume parade begins at 1:30 and the parties start at 2:00.  No violent or inappropriate costumes are allowed.  Remember that we do not have school next Friday, after Halloween.  Lastly, the Scholastic Book Fair is up and running.  Check it out!  We are collecting change for the "All for Books" program.  All students took home a baggie with a note attached to collect any loose change or $1 bills.  

Missouri Heritage Days at Babler State Park- 10/21

Here's a look at our field trip!  We had a blast learning about the pioneer days!  We rotated to different stations to learn about the many different ways of life for the pioneers.

First we visited the tools and wood work station.  We found out how the pioneers cut trees to make a log cabin!  We also saw how the pioneers would have made a fire.

After the wood work station, we visited an energetic mountain man who taught us about the Louisiana Purchase and the Corps of Discovery.  He briefly discussed everything that we will learn in Chapter 3 of Social Studies!  Perfect!  

Next we went to the music rotation to hear songs that were played for people like George Washington!  In addition to the fiddle, we were able to listen to very interesting instruments like the gourd banjo.

The pioneer toys station was fun!  We played Graces, a game where you use two long sticks to launch a hoop to a partner.  We also played Stick Pull and a beanbag game (although we know that the pioneers didn't have beanbags).  Finally, we made "buzz saws" out of string and a button.

After the games, we headed to square dance!  The boys pretended that they didn't enjoy dancing, but we all had a great time learning!  :) 

After our hard work, we rewarded ourselves with lunch.  At our next rotation, we learned about the types of clothes the pioneers wore and different jobs that the men and women had.  The boys gathered the water, and the girls washed the laundry.  We even got to feel real silk, which is what the rich could afford for clothing.  

We really enjoyed hearing about the blacksmith's job!  We saw him make a nail and a hook out of plain pieces of metal right before our eyes.  He made sure we remembered that metal can bend when it reaches 1800 degrees and is a bright orange color.  

Sacagawea did a great job in telling us about her trip with Lewis and Clark!  Did you know that she was traveling with her baby?  She was such a great help to Lewis and Clark, as she knew the land and people in the area.  

In our final rotation, we visited a general store.  The general store was a happenin' place!  People socialized there and could find a little bit of everything.  We got to take a close look at some of the many things that a general store would carry.  Among other things, we browsed a coffee maker, cologne, cookware, toys, and shoes!

What a fun and educational trip!

Weekly Update

Math 

We have finished with elapsed time, although some students still may need to work on this at home.  We are now in Chapter 6 and are talking about collecting and organizing data.  We discussed that the first step in collecting data is to take a survey.  We asked our classmates a survey question and then went around the room making a tally mark on our choice of answers in each student's survey.  For example, Mrs. Leighton asked, "What is your favorite ice cream flavor?"  The survey choices were vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, cookie dough, and other.  Now, all students have a survey in which they can use the data to make charts and graphs!  In Chapter 6, we will also be learning about mean, median, mode, and range.  Take a look at our tally tables for our surveys below!

Reading

We continued our fiction unit with discussions of story elements.  In reading groups, we are looking at the October Scholastic Storyworks magazine!  Our plan is to start our new read aloud, another Mark Twain Nominee, this week!  It is called Missing on Superstition Mountain.  

Writing/Spelling 

We are continuing to work on revising our story scenes in our realistic fiction stories.   This past week we focused on adding dialogue to our stories.  We reviewed the many ways to spice up our writing with the "Ba-Da-Bing" revision strategy.  Below is our anchor chart for this strategy, but ask your student what this means to him or her in their writing!  We thought we'd have time to receive a new sort in Spelling this past week, but it ended up being pushed to this week.

Science/Social Studies

We have finished our Ecosystems unit this past week with a study of fossils.  We will move on to Social Studies this week.  Chapter 2 will continue our yearlong study of Missouri.  

Other Important Info.

If you have not yet signed up for Parent-Teacher Conferences, please do so.  Monday, October 28th has one time slot open.  Otherwise, there are some time slot choices for Wednesday, October 30th.  Again, report cards will be mailed out later this week.  Don't forget that our first field trip is tomorrow!  We will visit Babler State Park for Missouri Heritage Days!  We leave first thing in the morning.  Students should bring a sack lunch and wear comfortable tennis shoes.  I also highly recommend that students wear a jacket, as it can be especially cool in the shade!  I am looking forward to tomorrow!  Finally, Red Ribbon Week starts tomorrow with crazy sock day!

Author Visit: Tyler Whitesides!

Today was a very exciting day at Long.  The 4th and 5th graders got to hear from a famous author, Tyler Whitesides!  We got to hear about how Tyler created his Janitor series.  Check out the pictures below to see what we learned!

In writing, we have been gathering ideas for our realistic fiction unit.  Tyler shared how he finds his writing ideas!  We learned that we can take ordinary objects, places, and moments and turn them into EXTRAordinary story ideas!

Tyler got the idea for his Janitor series because he used to be a janitor!  In the picture below, Tyler took some ordinary cleaning supplies and gave them extraordinary powers!  We were lucky enough to have one of our classmates demonstrate one of these cleaning supplies.  Great job, Katherine!

Next, Tyler told us about some of his characters.  Again, we could relate to this because we worked hard on developing our own characters in our realistic fiction stories.  Tyler shared that one of his characters is a garbologist, which of course is someone who studies the garbage.  Tyler even visited a real garbage dump to learn more about the subject!  What was even cooler was that Tyler shared some of his dialogue with us, and we just wrote our own dialogue this week!  It was awesome to hear example dialogue from a real author!  

At the end of the program, Tyler kept us entertained!  He played the garbage cans (yes, the garbage cans) as drums for us!  He also cited a Shel Silverstein poem about taking out the trash, using different popular voices.  Hm... I wonder what his theme was today?  : )   Check out some of the voices he used below!

This author visit was definitely a treat for us!  We learned so much about writing, and had a lot of fun with Tyler Whitesides.  Each student received a Janitors bookmark today!  Students are also bringing home information for Tyler's book signing at the Fenton Barnes & Noble @ 6:30 tonight!  Students can go to get a free, autographed poster like the one Katherine is holding below.  Tyler will also be selling the 3 books that he has written in this new fantasy series.  

If you would like more information on Tyler Whitesides or his series, you can visit his website here!

Students, did you have a favorite part of the author visit?  If so, share your comment below!