Fun Day in P.E

Today CA lost another tooth. During P.E. we got to play with a huge ball,

scooters,

and bouncy balls!

Those of us on scooters tried to steer clear of the person with the big ball.

but it wasn't always easy.

JS loved this game.

At the end of our P.E. time, Mrs. Hamilton passed out

items for participating for in "Jump for Heart".

Today we made CS's birthday magazine. Happy 8th birthday!

Spring Cleaning

This morning we organized our literature books.

Now we know where the easy, medium, and hard books are located. After lunch we planted some seeds.

We are curious to see how long it will take them to grow.
Towards the end of the day we started our latest newspaper.
We are publishing it without editing it in the computer lab, so please
enjoy our quick reporting. Here students are downloading their writing
onto the final document.

African Items

Today CF and his mom brought in some items that they got from

their uncle when he was stationed in Africa.
This is a bracelet made from an elephants tail hair.

This is SB checking it out.

Guest Speakers

The blog pictures are out of order today, sorry.

This is a picture that shows JS's grandpa talking to us about his experience in Africa.

This morning I introduced a new listening center. Students sat reading quietly waiting for a turn to listen to their book on tape.
We are finishing up our African adventure stories and here students are scanning their art to go with their story.



In the afternoon, JS's grandparents came to share their slide show of their trip to Africa.
They showed us slides mainly of the unique animals that live in Africa.
They also had a few pictures of classrooms that they were able to visit.

Here is a slide of someones house they are building.

Here his grandma is showing us a beautiful ostrich

egg that has the "big five" animals of Africa on it.

We enjoyed and learned so much from their visit.

Thank you for coming in.

I told you earlier that I was hoping to present our slide shows to you

before Spring Break.... We aren't quite ready.

I am thinking a little into April. We want to perform a play for you too.

Homework For All

Parents are invited to eat lunch at school this Friday.

We eat lunch at 11:25. Feel free to come if it fits your schedule.

This is BL illustrating a story that she wrote during reading block.

When she is finished, she will read it to all of us. I can't wait to hear it. Today we all did a math "Excel" page. We started one side together in class and the other side is for homework. Everyone is to bring it back Thursday so we can correct it together.

This is JW working on his. Excel is nice because in each box you get a few math problems, then you add those numbers up to see if it matches the number inside the small box. It is a nice way to check your work. I will send Excel math home each Wednesday from now on. Please help your child with their work and remind them to bring it back each Thursday. Thank you!
At the end of the day our 4th grade reading buddies came.
Students had the option of reading together or working on their drawing for their African adventure story. This is JS and BS looking up a picture of an Okapi to see if it has ears.

This is BR and his buddy coloring a drawing of a lion.

Here SB and ESH are working on her giraffe.

SA and KT chose to read quietly on the rug.

This is a larger picture to show you what our room looks like with two classrooms working together. It is a highlight of our week when our reading buddies come.

Birthday Lunch

Today we celebrated our March birthdays at lunch time. We got to eat up on the stage with Mrs. Thorne, our school guidance counselor.
In the afternoon we edited our African adventure stories.
This is SA working on her very entertaining story. First we typed our stories, then we printed them to help us find our errors. Next we used our dictionary to fix our spelling.
Tomorrow we will download our final copy and display them.

Clicker Reading Tests

Here is SA reading one of our new books. I got busy with another group while we were taking our clicker test, so EM continued doing what I was doing. She was able to click the button after everyone in her group "clicked" in their answer to show them the correct answer. Next she would advance the program to the next question. Pretty neat to have such confident students taking over to help everyone complete their task.

This is AB and JS looking at the laptop instead of the large projector screen to take their clicker test.

Here are SB and BL taking their reading test with the clickers.
They like to use the big screen.
This is JS reading quitely during reading block.

Monkey Party

We earned enough monkeys (from compliment) to have a treat. JS mom and brothers brought in fruit kabobs for us. Thank you, they were delicious.

African Writing

We started our imaginative writing assignment today.

Here you can see that some of us chose to write on paper while others chose to use the AlphaSmarts.
We painted again today.
We wanted to paint our African animal
with bright colors and a beautiful design.
Unfortunately, the white paint that we mixed, did NOT smell good.

African Safari

This is what our back bulletin board looks like now that we finished our African Animal paintings. Now to focus on our reports and slideshows. We will send an invitation to you

as soon as we are ready to present our work (Plan on the week before Spring Break). With it being classified week, we made another poster for our speech teacher.

Here we are painting pictures for it.

JS made the card for the letter "e". Each letter was made like this flashcard.

Then when we layed it out, it looked really cute. She will like it.

CA made the letter "s".