Change Is Simple

      This week, the 4th grade classes were visited by Change Is Simple, a group focusing on environmental education.  You can visit their website here.  Our workshop (one of four this year) focused on endangered animals and the role the environment plays in their survival.  We also learned about ways we, as humans, can prevent species from becoming extinct.  We greatly enjoyed our time with Change Is Simple and are very thankful to GREEN Topsfield for funding their visit!

Our Poetree

For the month of December, we are studying poetry in Reading and Writing.  Our class has really enjoyed exploring this genre and experimenting with different forms of poetry.  Using what we have read as inspiration, the class created color poems using descriptive and sensory words.  They then wrote their poems on paint chips to decorate our "Poetree!"

Word Splash

    This week, our class did a wonderful teamwork activity!  Each student was given a notecard with the name of another student on it.  They wrote a word that they associated with that peer.  The notecards were then passed around, so everyone go to write on all the notecards.

         We then created Word Splashes using the website Tagxedo.  The class entered in the words (once for each time it occurred on their card...this caused that word to be larger than others on the Word Splash), chose the colors, layout, etc., and ended with some beautiful artwork!

    It was really nice seeing what everyone wrote and how we all value each other for different things.  We are very lucky to have such a wonderful class!

Create an Animal

Our class has been engrossed in the study of animal adaptations. Students took this knowledge and created an animal of their own, incorporating adaptations into this new species. After filling in a graphic organizer, students used the app ExplainEverything to bring this new animal to life.

Click on the projects below to learn more about these new creatures.

Sharing Objects

      As part of the Global Read Aloud, our class is reading Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly Hunt.  In the book, members of Ally's class each bring in an object that represents them.  We decided that we would like to do the same thing, so everyone in our class brought in an object that is special to them.  They then explained what the object was and why it was important.

      It was really fun hearing everyone share their items!