Weekly Blog Post #7

December 6, 2013

Written by:  Matt & Trinity

Greetings!!  December is a very busy and exciting month in Parkinville!   We are looking forward to our holiday break and the wreath on our classroom door tells us it's coming soon.

Friendly Reminders
There are lots of fun dates to remember in December.  Mark your calendars....

Dec. 10th - 4th Grade Field Trip to the Maine Historical Society and Longfellow's House in Portland. If you volunteered to chaperone, Mrs. Parkin will be emailing you.

Dec. 13th - If you are participating in the Parkinville Charitable Giving Project, the donations are due on the 13th for Camp Sunshine, the USO and Make a Wish.  Mrs. Parkin has a Donation Station set up in the classroom that is ready for business.  Checks should be made out to the organization (not YES). Just a friendly reminder....this is completely optional.

The Publishing Party is also happening on Dec. 13th.  It starts at 8:15am.  Please let Mrs. Parkin know if you can bring a (relatively healthy) breakfast item.

Dec. 18th - 4th Grade Chorus & Orff Concert @7pm.

Dec. 20th - Last day of school before winter break.

Science

Our Lima Bean experiment is still going strong.  We have learned that the lima beans can grow without soil, because they have nutrients inside the bean to help them grow.  Take a look at Jack's lima bean!

Last week, we cut the leaves from our salad greens and ate them!!  They were delicious and now the leaves are growing back!

Math
We took our Unit 5 Assessment today on partial products.  We are math ninjas!  The Unit 4 Assessment is going home today.  Please review with your student.  Also, at this point everyone should be close to meeting the 48 out of 50 multiplication facts.  Please practice every night!

Reading
We are still enjoying The Young Man in the Sea.  Skiff discovered that his lobster traps had been cut by Tyler, the bully.   Skiff is trying to figure out how to handle the situation.

Writing
We are working hard on our final drafts of our fiction writing and can't wait to share them with you at our Publishing Party on Dec. 13th!

Shares
We are enjoying everyone's shares this month.  It's fun learning about everyone's holiday traditions.

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

Weekly Blog Post #6

November 22, 2013

Written by: Ari and Hannah

Announcements:

In classroom economy, we have decided to give our "money" to 3 charities.  We came up with a list of 14 charities and the classroom took a vote.  The winning charities are Camp Sunshine, Make a Wish and the USO (military).   Thursdays are banking days and this is when we give our "money" to our charities.  As of today, we have raised over $5,000!!  Camp Sunshine has $1,225, Make a Wish has $1,855 and the USO has $1,985.  This weekend, Mrs. Parkin will send home an e-mail to explain how giving to these 3 charities is going to come to life.

 

On Tuesday, there will be a school-wide community meeting.  Students are invited to bring in a non-perishable food item to donate.  They can bring their item in on Monday or Tuesday.  This is part of our "bucket filling" curriculum.   

Science:

Our lima bean experiment turned out to be a success!  Most of our lima beans sprouted roots.  Take a look!  We learned that you can grow plants without soil.

Lima bean with root.

Some of them were moldy.

We are going to make a salad from our aerogarden in the next couple of weeks!!  Take a look at how beautiful our salad greens are!

Yum!

 

Reading:

The Young Man and the Sea:  Skiff rescued his boat and is now trying to rebuild it with the help of Mr. Woodwell.  He is in his 90's and has lots of experience with boat building.  Skiff's dad used to work for Mr. Woodwell. 

Writing:

We are finishing up the first drafts of our realistic fiction stories.  We are adding sensory details, thoughts and feelings to make time go by fast, instead of writing "and then", "and then", "and then".  We will have a publishing party after Thanksgiving.  Stay tuned for more details.

Math:

We are working on estimating BIG numbers.  We are also working on multiplying using extension facts and we will be practicing the Partial Products algorithm next week.

Spelling:

This week, we took our first spelling test!  We received $10 of Parkinville money for every correct answer.  If we spelled all the words correctly we received $100!

Friendly Reminders:

Next week is a two day week.   Thanksgiving vacation starts on Wednesday, Nov. 27th.

The bloggers would like to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!  They are grateful for family, friends, food, heat, school and books.

Weekly Blog Post #5

November 15, 2013

Written by:  Sawyer & Kaiyla

Welcome back to Parkinville!

 

Announcements:  

During recess, if you run around the playground 8 times you get a prize from Ms. Pachuta.  There is a red track around the playground to mark the route.  It keeps us in great shape!

Students received book orders today.  You can order online at scholastic.com by entering the class activation code (JFTXY).  Orders are due next Friday (Nov. 22nd).

Reading:

We finished reading Top Secret!  Here's how it ended.  Mrs. Green, the science teacher, turned into a tree because she applied "photosynthesis" lip balm to her lips.  Five minutes after she licked her lips, she turned green, then turned into a tree.   The very end was a bit of a mystery, because we never found out if Allen won the Silver trophy for the Science Fair.    

 

Our new read aloud is called The Young Man and the Sea.  We are on chapter 2 and here's what we know so far.  The main character's name is Skiff.  He's 12 years old and his ship (the Mary Rose) sunk.  Stay tuned to find out what happens next.

Writing:

We are working on our first drafts of our realistic fiction stories.  There will be five scenes per story.  We are using our story mountains to help describe the main character's struggles and his/her resolution. 

Science:

The salad greens are growing bigger and bigger in our Aerogarden.  We use our inquiry notebooks to write down all our scientific observations.  We measured one of the plants and it measured 7" tall.  Take a peak at our comments and our salad greens....

Kaiyla's inquiry notebook

Salad Greens!!!

Look at those roots!!

We started a new science experiment today using lima beans!  We made a special pouch for our lima beans, then watered them, then hung them up in our classroom.  Everyone in Parkinville made predictions on how/if they would grow.  Some of us thought they wouldn't grow, because they don't have soil.  Others thought they would grow without the soil.  We are going to check our lima beans each day and will report the results on the blog next week.  Here are a couple of pictures of our experiement....

Putting water in our bag.

There goes the lima bean!

Lima bean display

Math:

We just finished Unit 4, which was on decimals and fractions.  We took the assessment on Thursday.  Unit 5 is all about estimating BIG numbers.

Specials:

PE:  We are working on making the world a better place, by being very kind to each other.  We are playing lots of games with kindness in mind.

Art:  We finished our wall hangings, which will be coming home today.  They are beautiful!

Guidance:  We are still exploring the "unthinkables".

Music:  Recorders, recorders, recorders.

Library:  We are book worms!!

 

Thanks for reading our blog!!

 

 

Weekly Blog Post #4

November 8, 2013

Written by:  Mason and Mark

Welcome back!!  

Announcements

Next week, we will be getting new jobs in Parkinville.  We are all excited to try something new.

Science 

Today, we performed a chlorophyll experiment!  We went out into the school garden and picked different types of leaves, then we put each leaf inside a folded piece of paper.  Next, we rubbed the paper with a popsicle stick to flatten the leaf.  When we opened the folded piece of paper, there was chlorophyll on the paper (green, red, orange and purple....depending on the color of the leaf).  When we tried doing this with dead leaves, there was no chlorophyll at all.   

Kale chlorophyll

Our observations

 

Our salad greens are doing very well in our Aero Garden.  Take a look....

They are getting bigger

Reading

In Top Secret, the main character is sprouting roots from his toes, because he's turning into a plant.  The President's secretary is refusing to tell the world that if you only eat raw liver and drink water for a month, you'll turn into a plant.  We can't wait to find out what happens next.

Writing

We are starting to conference with Mrs. Parkin about our story mountains.  This is where we introduce the problem in the story, discuss possible solutions, then reveal how we will solve the problem in the end.

Math

We've been adding and subtracting decimals in the tenths and the hundredths.  On Thursday, we started working in the thousandths.   We've also been measuring using the metric system.  Lastly, we are working on finishing addition on XtraMath.

Specials

PE - We are all done with tennis.  Next week, we'll be starting something new.

Library - We had fun picking out books.

Art - We are still working on stencils.

Music - We had a ball at the Portland Symphony on Monday!  We listened to jazz!

Guidance - We are working on defeating the "unthinkables".

Friendly Reminder

There is no school on Monday (it's conference day!).  Enjoy your 3 day weekend.  

 

It is getting chillier out, please make sure your child wears a jacket to school.

Thanks for visiting our blog!!

Weekly Blog Post #3

November 1st, 2013

Written by:  Maddie and Jasper

Happy November!  Welcome back to Parkinville.

Special Announcements:

We celebrated the World Series Champions, our very own Boston Red Sox, by cheering for them on the playground!  We hope they heard us at Fenway!  Go Sox!!

 

On Thursday, we celebrated Halloween by watching a movie called It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. 

Reading:

We are still reading Top Secret and we are trying to figure out if the main character is in a dream or if he actually turned green!  We are half way through the book and are learning lots of good scientific information, such as H20 is water.

Writing:

We started brainstorming about our realistic fiction stories this week.  We are getting to know our characters better by coming up with internal and external traits about each of them.  The bloggers think it's really fun to make up characters, because you can turn them into anything you'd like.

Math:

Decimals, decimals, decimals!  They are a little confusing, but we are trying our best to get the hang of them.

Science: 

All seven pods have sprouted in our Aero Garden.  Right now, they look green and fuzzy.

Salad greens!

Specials:

PE:  For Halloween we played Ghost Busters, which was a cardio game.  

Library:  Mrs. Clark read us a scary story this week!  

Art:  We are working on stencils.

Music:  We are having fun with our recorders.

Guidance:  Mrs. Spellman is teaching us about all the "unthinkables", which are evil characters that are mean to people.

 

Friendy Reminders:

Our field trip to the Portland Symphony is on Monday, November 4th.

 

Mrs. Parkin is sending home a "share calendar".  This will let you know when your child will be sharing with the class.  They can bring something in or share something verbally.  The theme for November is "What are you thankful for".

 

No school on November 11th (Veteran's Day).

 

Happy Friday!  Come back and see us next week.  

 

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.

Weekly Wrap Up

Happy Friday! Here's a quick list of what the students said they enjoyed this week:

• Band demonstration (the “John and Joe show”)
• Banking
• Knowing that we’ll be playing instruments
• Using the compasses in math
• Writing our “Where I’m From” poems
• Classroom economy
• Doing our jobs
• Getting our jobs
• Payday
• Had our first auction
• Watching the movie in music/having chorus
• Orff ensemble on Wednesday morning
• Reading our books
• Quiet time

I hope to see you at our Open House on Monday at 6:30 p.m.! 

If you can, please bring a mobile device that is able to connect to the internet (phone, iPad or other tablet, etc.) for an interactive portion of our time together. I will have a few iPads to share. I look forward to seeing you!

- Mrs. Parkin

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Welcome Back!

How can it be that September is right around the corner?!? I hope you have all enjoyed your summer days and this beautiful Maine weather! My summer vacation actually started a little early this year, because of this little one...

...baby Jane! She is now three months old and it has been so amazing to watch her get bigger and stronger and learn new things. This summer included many firsts for Janey-- including her first Clam Fest (she thought it was way too hot!!), her first hike (up The Mountain in Rome, Maine), and her first lobster dinner (well, sort of...). Mr. Parkin, Janey, and I spent lots of time at my family's house in Belgrade, which Janey loves, although she hasn't actually tried swimming yet. She also loves eating, looking at trees, and practicing her kicks. She doesn't have too many dislikes (lucky for us!) but she really hates wet diapers.

I have also spent lots of time this summer getting ready for a new school year with new friends! In between Janey's naps and meal times, I've been reading, planning, and thinking about how we can make this our best year together! This is my eighth year teaching, and my third year at YES, and I always look forward to building a new community with a fresh batch of students. I'm sure you have so much to teach me, and I can't wait for us to learn together! If you'd like to know more about my education and background, please click here.

I am so excited to meet everyone, and I hope you can all stop by during our teacher drop-in, from 9:30-10:30 a.m. on Thursday, August 29th. Come say hello, check out our classroom (room 302 in the yellow hallway), and drop off your school supplies if you have them. During the first week of school, please plan to bring a book you read and enjoyed this summer. (You won't need it on the first day, but I like to give a little heads-up in case you don't have your book at your house right now!)

While you're here at our class blog, The Parkin Spot, please explore a little! I've tried to include lots of information that might answer some questions you have about fourth grade, like our schedule and homework expectations. If you have a few extra minutes, please comment below and share what you're most looking forward to about fourth grade! You can do that by clicking where it says "no comments" (or 1 comment, 2 comments, etc.) at the bottom of this post. Type your response in the box (don't forget to include your name so we know who you are!), then select "comment as anonymous." Click on "publish" and you're done!

I look forward to getting to know you, and I'm so happy to be your fourth grade teacher!

Mrs. Parkin