Weekly Blog Post #2

October 25, 2013

Written by:  Eliza, Lexi, Laney, Elena

Welcome back!  

Announcement:  

The recorders have arrived!!  We are very excited!!

Reading:  

The book fair is over and we all had fun picking out books.  Two of our blogger's parents donated money and we were able to pick out 4 books for Mrs. Parkin's classroom (No Passengers Beyond This Point x 2 and Romeo Blue x 2).  

Mrs. Parkin has started a new read-a-loud book called Top Secret.  It's about a boy, his science project and his mean teacher, Mrs. Green.  

Writing:

We all had fun at the publishing party on Wednesday!  Thank you for visiting our classroom and celebrating our writing.  We loved all the yummy treats!!  Thank you!

Science:

We set up our Aero Garden 7 today.  We will be growing salad greens in our classroom.  They will take 1-7 days to sprout.   Stay tuned for updates and check out the pictures below.

This is the controller.  It turns on and off automatically.

The Aero Garden 7.

There are 7 planter pods growing salad greens.

These are all our questions about the Aero Garden 7.

Math:  

We had our Unit 3 assessment today.  It covered parentheses, algebra, map scales, factors and true & false statement.  Sneak Peak:  Unit 4 will cover decimals, fractions and measurements.  Hold on to your hats!

Specials:

PE:  We are almost done with our tennis unit.

Art:  We are starting symmetrical figures.

Library:  Book Fair!

Music:  We had students visiting from a university to observe our class.  We found out we'll be visiting the Portland Symphony in 2 weeks!!  Very exciting!!

Guidance:  We talked about how certain personality traits affect your mood.

Friendly Reminders:

If you haven't signed up for Fall Conferences, please e-mail Mrs. Parkin.

The bloggers would like to remind everyone that Halloween is next Thursday....BOO!!   A note from Mrs. Parkin - Please do not bring candy in for morning snack.  Bringing in one piece as a lunch treat would be fine.  

Thanks for reading our blog.  Have a great weekend!!

Weekly Blog Post #1

October 18, 2013

Written by:  Laney & Elena

Greetings to the families and friends of Mrs. Parkin's class!!  This is our very first blog of the year and we hope you find it helpful and informative.

Announcements:  

We are all very excited that the NECAP testing is over!!  Hip hip hurray!!

Reading:  

Last week, we started reading groups and partnerships.  Each reading group reads a certain amount of pages then discusses the content.  We are learning what is really important in the story and what is less important.  We are using sticky notes to keep track of our thoughts.

Mrs. Parkin is reading Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, by Judy Blume, to the class.  Today, Fudge (the little brother) gulped a turtle!!!  Can you image??  We are at the end of the book and will be finishing soon.  Laney & Elena say it's a very funny book.

Writing:

We started our personal narratives in the middle of September and are finishing them up now.  Mrs. Parkin has given us a great checklist for our narratives.  We need to include the following:  sensory details, feelings, thoughts, dialogue, the heart of the story, timelines, etc.  We worked at our editing stations today, which was really fun!  We checked our spelling, grammar and made sure our stories made sense. 

Math:

We are working on our multiplication and division facts with our fact triangles.  We are also adding in the 1,000's.  We are working in BIG NUMBERS, because we are so smart!

Classroom Economy:

We are having so much fun with our classroom economy.  We are all earning money for various jobs and good behavior.  There have been a few fines for "off task" behavior, but we are working hard to correct that.  Every Friday is Auction Day where we raffle off really fun stuff, such as reading buddies, eating lunch with Mrs. Parkin on Thursdays, a homework pass, a courtyard pass, a hallway pass, where a hat pass, etc.  Some of us are trying to earn enough money to buy our desk ($3,000).  If we don't buy our desk, we have to rent them ($1,000 a month).

Pretty soon, we are going to have a classroom newspaper.  Stay tuned for more information.

Special:

In Art, we finished up our scientific tree drawings and they look awesome!

In Music, we are playing recorders.  Some students bought a recorder and they will arrive on Monday (we hope!)

In PE, we are playing tennis!

In Library, we are getting excited for the Book Fair.

In Computer, we are playing lots of Timez Attack, which helps us learn our multiplication facts.

Reminders:  

Our Publishing Party is on Wednesday, Oct. 23rd @ 8:15am.   We hope to see you there!

The YES Book Fair starts next week  (Monday - Friday).  On Tuesday and Wednesday, families are welcome to come in after school and check out the selection of books.

Don't forget to sign up for Fall Conferences.  Mrs. Parkin will be sending home information today on how to sign up for your conference. 

Thanks for reading our blog!!  See you next week.