Concert dress rehearsal

The kids did a wonderful job today at their dress rehearsal! Make sure to come to the spring concert on Thursday, May 15th at 6 pm!

Wax Museum

Sorry for the delay in posting (technical difficulties) but here's a great photo of our favorite famous people! The kids did a great job and we all should be very proud!

Techsplorations

On Wednesday, March 19th, the fourth grade had a chance to spend 2 hours with Mr. Wahle, learning snout electricity. The children got to create circuits with doorbells, light bulbs and fans!

Simple Machines

To kick off our study of simple machines, we began by watching some really neat videos of Rube Goldberg machines. This helped to inspire the kids when they headed off to CLIC to create "gumball machines" using a series of simple machines. It was really impressive to see the class challenge themselves, even utilizing homemade pulleys to move their "gumball" up and down!

Hour of Code

Our class had an amazing opportunity this week to explore how to write computer code. Mrs. Klipfel guided us through the process, learning how to "tell" characters what to do online (yes, there were Angry Birds!). The website is accessible from the grade 4 portal on Mrs. Klipfel's blog. 

Webcast with two famous authors!

Today, the class had the opportunity to watch a live webcast with Jeff Kinney and Dav Pilkey, creators of the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" and "Captain Underpants" series.  They started creating a story together which our class has the opportunity to finish. They can then submit their story and win prizes! Details are being sent home today. 

New Weekly Homework Assignments

For Reading:  Children will still need to read 30 minutes every night and have someone sign their red reading log.  Additionally, they will need to respond (with a comment) to a blog post I put up every Monday.  They have until Friday to do so, and will need to check their comment for spelling, grammar, etc. (I suggested writing it in Word first, then posting it as a comment).  For example, the post I put up today asked about the genre of the book they're reading at home and how they know what genre it is.  This would be a great comment:

"I am reading Charlotte's Web by E.B. White which is a fantasy.  Though there are realistic parts, the thing that makes it fantasy is the talking animals.  There isn't any magic or anything like that, but the fact that the animals have conversations, with each other and humans, makes this fantasy.  What I think is interesting is that the rest of the book is very realistic but there is just this one aspect of fantasy."

For Vocab:  Students will now have vocabulary/spelling tests.  Each list of 12 words will last two weeks.  On the first Friday of the unit (so January 10th) they will have a test consisting of me reading the word and them writing a sentence illustrating the word's meaning.  They will earn 1 point for each word that is spelled correctly and 1 point for each sentence (but only if it tells me that they know what the word means).  If they get a 100% on the test during week 1, they do not have to take another test for that list of words.  If they do not get a 100%, they can use the next week to study what they need to fix and take the test on the next Friday (January 17th).  I will take the higher of the two scores.  This means they will have more vocabulary homework and will do all of their studying at home.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

I Am NOT a Turkey!

Our disguises for turkeys!

4th Grade Poets!

On Tuesday, we joined Mrs. Murphy's class to read lots of different kinds of poetry books.  We then wrote our own poems in the style of the ones we read.

Teddies are on their way!

We are about to send our teddies out into the world!  How exciting!  Our official Send-Off is Thursday, November 14th at 2:30 (parents, feel free to come).  Until then, everything you need to know about the teddies is below.  A paper version is also coming home today (Tuesday).  Please let me know if you have any questions! (kmehlin@topsfieldps.org)

Dear Parents,

         As you probably know, we are beginning the fourth grade Teddy Bear project. The teddy bear send-off is Thursday, November 14^th  at 2:30. Parents are welcome to attend and help the students bid their bears farewell. Below is a checklist of what your child and you need to do to prepare for the send-off:

q  Select a responsible person in another state to receive “Teddy.” Please try to let the person know in advance about the project. Also, try to keep it in this country since the purpose is to learn about the regions in our country.

q  Get a box sturdy enough for Teddy to travel in, but not too big.

q  Pack Teddy, his journal (the journal will be completed in school) and anything else you want to send along with him in the box.

q  Wrap it all up and address it.

q  Bring it to the Post Office in town and alert them that you are sending a bear as part of the Proctor Bear Project. They are aware of the Teddy Bear Project, but remind them that only stamps should be attached.

q  Prepay the postage, but don’t leave the box with the Post Office. They’ll pick it up at the send-off.

q  Bring the stamped, postmarked, wrapped box to school by November 14^th.

Thank you.

Sincerely,                                                      

The Fourth Grade Teachers

We're coming!!!!!!

DASH

A big thank you to the parents who came into our class for DASH (Disability Awareness Starts Here)!

Lowell Mills

Here are some photos from our field trip to Lowell Mills on Wednesday!