Weekly blog post # 19

May 2, 2014

Written by:  Olivia & Hannah

Announcements

Field Day is coming!!!  Mark your calendars for June 12th (rain date is June 13th).   This is a really fun way to celebrate the end of the year with the entire school....bouncy houses, face painting, relay races, quidditch, parachute games etc.  We need loads and loads of volunteers, so come on out and join the fun.  More info to come....

On May 7th, we will be taking a field trip to the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath.  Please pack a lunch for your student and a nut free snack to be eaten on the bus.  If you haven't already turned in your permission slip, please do so.  

Writing

Thank you for coming to our Publishing Party today!  We had a great time sharing our research reports and google presentations with our families.  Some of the things we included in our research reports were:  introductions, conclusions, source list, fun facts and pictures/videos/charts.  

We started our poetry unit today and got to go outside to write our very own poem.  We were a little apprehensive about writing poetry, because we didn't think we could do it.  We were wrong!  In the end, we did a great job and actually enjoyed writing poetry.  We tried to include all our senses in our poems to give the reader an idea of what we were feeling.  We will be writing poetry throughout the month of May.  

It's time to honor an old friend

After the Publishing Party, Olivia's Mom told us a story about a girl named Caoimhe Lynch who was a friend of hers when they were in 4th grade together at YES.  In fact, Mrs. Parkin was in the 5th grade at YES that year and also knew Caoimhe and her family.  Olivia's Mom and Caoimhe met on the first day of school and became fast friends.  Sadly, in March of that year, Caoimhe died of a rare heart disease.  To honor their friend, they planted a tree outside their classroom, which is now Mrs. Parkin's room. Here is a picture of the tree which we see every day.

Caoimhe's tree (planted in 1992)

A bookmark of Caoimhe and one of her poems.

Twenty two years have gone by and we think it's time to put a plaque by the tree to make sure everyone knows it's Caoimhe's tree.  The money has been raised and the plaque is now being made. Before school is out, we will have a dedication ceremony.  At the same time, we will be planting our very own tree, near the garden, from Mrs. Parkin's class.  To do that, we need to raise money for this tree.  We've decided to create a book of poems, written by the students of Parkinville, to sell to our family and friends.  Please be on the lookout for more information about this important fund raising effort.

Math

Our math unit has been around rates and unit prices.  We've also multiplied numbers with decimals. 

Class Read

On Tuesday, we started reading Runaway to Freedom, by Barbara Smucker.  This book is about slavery and the main character is a young girl named Julilly.   She has been sold to a different slave owner and is now separated from her mother.  She misses her terribly and wonders how she is doing.  Her new slave owner is very unkind and she is getting used to her new environment.  

This book was written is 1977 and we realized there is language in the book that we would never use today.  We had a serious discussion about this language and know why those words should not be part of our vocabulary.  

Through this book, we will also be talking about Maine's connection to the underground railroad.  Have you ever seen an old house in Maine with a white chimney that has a black stripe at the top of it?  These houses were part of the underground railroad.  This was a signal to slaves that that house was a safe house to stay in during their trip north.  Be on the look out for these historic homes in our area.

We are reading this book at school and at home.  Please make sure your student returns the book to school each day.

Thanks for visiting our blog!  Come back next week!!

Weekly blog post #18

April 4th, 2014

Written by:  Laney & Trinity

Announcements:

Today, the entire 4th grade went into the gym to support our classmate who has Muscular Dystrophy. We danced to Happy, by Pharrell Williams!  We also played lots of fun games.  

 

Beach Day is on Friday, April 11th!  The lunchroom will be decorated as a beach and the salad bar items will be placed in a canoe!  We will sit on towels and listen to the Beach Boys while we eat our lunch.  It's so much fun!  

 

A Crime in Parkinville

Someone hacked into our classmates' Sumdog accounts and spent their Sumdog money and/or changed their character.  This was a big problem!  We had a very good class conversation about trust and privacy of online profiles.

Math

We took the Unit 10 Part B Assessment today.  These are not secure skills, but it lets Mrs. Parkin know where we need help.  We already started Unit 11, which is on weight and volume.

Writing

We are still working on our Maine research project.  Our bloggers are studying Samantha Smith and black bears.  We have finished researching and taking notes and next week we will be writing and revising our essays.

Science

Our Aero Garden is back!  We are growing 7 different kinds of basil (lemon basil, thai basil, globe basil, genovese basil, marseille basil, napolitano basil and red rubin basil).   Did you know that basil comes in purple, too?  That's the red rubin basil!

Marseille basil

Red Rubin Basil

Reading
We are reading historical fiction books in our reading groups.  We read aloud to each other, then read a couple of chapters by ourselves, then regroup and discuss what we all read.  Character development, plot and setting are some of the things we discuss in our groups.  One of our bloggers is reading A Lion to Guard Us.

Read-a-loud 
Charlotte is still in the brig, but she was just accused of murder and sentenced to death!  We think Captain Jaggery killed Mr. Hollybrass, because Mr. Hollybrass accused Captain Jaggery of sailing into the storm on purpose.   We will be finishing this book next week.  It's been very popular!

 

Spring is really coming....

We know spring is really coming, because today is the Opening Day (home opener) for the Boston Red Sox!  They are going to celebrate their World Championship win by receiving their rings before the game!

Have a great weekend!

Weekly Blog Post #17

March 28, 2014

Written by Matt, Mark, Kaiyla and Ed

Announcements

Today we watched a video on Muscular Dystrophy, because one of our classmates has this disease.  On Friday, April 4th YES is collecting donations for Muscular Dystrophy so we can support our friend. The money raised for the Muscular Dystrophy Association goes to helping to find a cure and to pay for kids to go to a summer camp in Maine.

We are bringing a scholastic book order home today.  They are due on Monday, because we received a coupon for Valentine's Day and it expires on Monday.  So, in order to use that coupon to receive a free book, we need to get our orders in quickly.  This can be done on line (at Scholastic.com and enter our class code of JFTXY) or by using the form coming home today.

Field Trip

On Tuesday, we went to the Portland Museum of Art with Ms. MacBride's class!  We saw lots of painted collages.  We also saw some paintings by Winslow Homer.  His studio is in Scarborough and they have set up a camera at his house pointing out to the ocean, which was a scene he painted over and over again.  There's a tv screen in the museum that shows the live shot of that scene for everyone to see.  

Math

We worked with transparent mirrors this week to sketch the reflection of a drawing.   The 3 transformations are called reflection, rotation and translation.

Social Studies/Writing

We finished the shipbuilding unit and have moved onto our Maine research projects.  Our bloggers are researching the Maine Red Claws (basketball team), tourmaline, graffiti and wolves.  We are using computers and books to research our topics, then we record our research in our Google Docs.

Read-a-loud

We are 2/3'rds of the way through The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.  The first mate mysteriously died from a stab wound.  All the sailors thought Charlotte did it, because it was her knife. Charlotte is currently in the brig (which is the ship's jail) for the murder.   We can't wait to find out what happens next!

Reading

The class has broken into 4 reading groups.  We read out loud to each other, then discuss what's happening in the book.  The bloggers are reading A Boy at War by Harry Mazer.

Thanks for visiting our blog!  Have a nice weekend!

Weekly Blog Post #16

March 21, 2014

Written by:  Piper, Jasper, Kaiyla

Announcements

On Tuesday, March 25th we are going to the Portland Museum of Art.  We leave at 9:30 and will be back for lunch.  If you haven't returned your permission slip, please do so on Monday.

Classroom Economy

This week we had to pay taxes!!  We had to figure out which tax bracket we were in, depending on our income.  If we made under $14,000, we had to pay 5%.  If we made between $14,001 and $16,000, we had to pay 10%.  If we made over $16,001, we had to pay 20%.    If we donated money to a charity, we were able to deduct it from our taxes.  Our bloggers had to pay $4,382, $500 and $1,432 to Mayor Parkin.  That's a lot of cha-ching!  We had an interesting discussion about whether we thought it was fair for people who made more money to pay more taxes.  Some of us thought it was fair, while others thought it wasn't fair.  Below is the Parkinville Revenue Service Tax Form 1040 EZ.  This is how we calculated our taxes.

 

 

Field Trip

On Tuesday, we went to the Yarmouth History Center on East Elm St.  Amy Aldredge, the Program Director, gave us a great lesson on ship building in Yarmouth in the 1800's.  Did you know that Yarmouth never built Clipper ships?  It's true!  Yarmouth only built cargo vessels, such as sloops, schooners, barkentines and brigantines.  These cargo vessels transported materials, such as lumber and granite to far away places.  Clipper ships were passenger ships and were very fast (which is why it makes for a great mascot!).

The peak of ship building in Yarmouth was between 1850 - 1875.  William Rowe called this period the Golden Years.  Amy showed us pictures of the Yarmouth boat yard and through these pictures we were able to see the different stages of boat building.  The History Center has many artifacts in their collection, such as a caulking box.  Caulking is what the builders did to fill the gaps between the planks to make the boat airtight.  Amy also showed us an octant.  She explained that an octant is an instrument that sailors used to help them navigate through the waters.  They used the sun, moon and stars to figure out their location and their path to their destination.  She also showed us a logbook from the Lucy Ann, which was a schooner built in Yarmouth.  The first mate recorded all sorts of information in the logbook, such as knots, winds, longitude and latitude.  This log was given to the History Center by Frank Knight's family (the caretaker of Herbie!).

We made lots of connections between our read-a-loud book (Charlotte Doyle) and our field trip to the Yarmouth History Center.

We want to thank Amy for her time on Tuesday!  Our knowledge of shipbuilding in Yarmouth is growing!  Take a look at our pictures below.

Lucy Ann's logbook

Writing 

We worked on our shipbuilding research project.   We organized our notes into the following categories:  Shipbuilding in Yarmouth, Getting Trees, Tools Used and How to use a Wooden Vessel.  

We were able to use the information we learned during our field trip to help us with our research project.  These are some pictures of our research books.

Math

In math we worked on percentages.  We learned how to figure percentages out on the calculator.    The smaller number divided by the bigger number gives you an answer.  If you hit the "=" sign, it gives you the decimal.  If you hit the "%" sign, you get the percent.   Today we took the Unit 9 assessment.

 

Read-a-loud

We are still reading The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.  This week we learned that a couple of characters died on the ship, which has added a lot of excitement to the story.  Charlotte has transformed herself in part 2.  She is more of a tom boy now, instead of a girly girl.   To prove to the sailors that she was one of them she climbed the mast.   

Yarmouth's Got Talent

Some of the acts from Yarmouth's Got Talent performed at YES on Monday.   The winners from K-4, 5-8 and 9-12 were present at the performance.  Our very own Lexi was part of the group that won the K-4 division.  Congrats Lexi!!  Jasper's brother was part of a winning group in the 5-8 division.  It was so fun to see all the contestants.  

 

Thanks for reading our blog!  Come back and visit next week.

Weekly Blog Post #15

March 7, 2014

Written by Jake & Hannah

Announcement

Have you heard the big news about Harrison Middle School?  Mr. Cuthbert, Mr. Arsenault, Mrs. Kellogg and a group of 7th grade students at HMS have been studying the impact of the European Green Crab on the coast of Maine.  Harrison Middle School was one of 2,300 schools to submit an idea to the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow Contest.  HMS was chosen as one of 15 finalists!  As a result, HMS has won $35,000 in technology equipment!!   If they are chosen as the top 3, HMS has the ability to increase that to $135,000 in Samsung technology.  We need your help!  Please vote for HMS!!   

See WCSH 6's coverage of this project.
Please vote for their project. You can vote once per day until March 14, 2014. Click on the link below to see their video entry and vote.
VOTE  

Field Trip

On Tuesday, we went to Homestead Flooring to learn more about area using floor tiles.  We broke into groups and worked together to answer several questions.  Here are a couple of examples of questions we had to answer:  

1.  Find a 12" X 12" tile on the floor.  This is 1 square foot.  How many small tiles can fit in the 12" tile.  
2.  Mr. & Mrs. Parkin's upstairs bathroom is 5' X 3'.  How many square foot tiles will they need?  Mrs. Parkin likes the 6" square tiles better.  How many 6" square tiles will they need for the bathroom?

Here are some pictures from our field trip...

Class research project
We started a research project on ship building and its connection to Yarmouth.  Mrs. Parkin asked us lots of questions to get us thinking about how ships were made in the 1800's (see below).  

Website Newsela
We learned about a website called Newsela this week.  It gives lots of information on non-fiction topics.  This website gives information on the following topics : War & Peace, Science, Kids, Money, Law, Health and Arts.  Once you finish researching a topic, you can take a quiz to see how much you learned!  Ask your student what they learned on Newsela.

Math 
We took the Unit 8 Asssesment this week.  Now, we are working on Unit 9 which is on percentages.


Read aloud
Mrs. Parkin is reading The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle.  We are just starting the book, but it's about a girl who takes a ship from England to the United States.  

Thank you for reading our blog!  See you next week! 

Weekly Blog Post #14

February 28, 2014

Written by:  Ed & Elena

Announcements

On Monday, we are going to Homestead Flooring in Yarmouth to learn more about perimeter and area. We'll get to apply our knowledge of measuring in a real life work setting.  We'll leave YES at 8:30 and will return around 10:00.  If you haven't returned your permission slip, please do so on Monday.

Math

You wouldn't believe what happened on Monday!  First you need to meet Tom & Jerry, our classroom bears.

Tom & Jerry

Our class received a letter telling us that Tom & Jerry were in danger of being "bear-napped"!  So, we decided to bring them outside and set up a perimeter to keep them safe.  Mrs. Parkin placed cones in each corner of the perimeter.  Then we measured the perimeter in different ways.  We used meters, centimeters, inches, feet, yards and even Ari cartwheels!  Once the bears were secure we brought them back to the safety of the classroom.  We recorded our total perimeter results on a chart.

Measuring in meters!

Measuring more meters!

Chart of perimeter results.

Big news - Mrs. Parkin is moving to Yarmouth!!  Mrs. Parkin needed some expert advice on figuring out the area of each of the rooms in her new house.  So, we divided into 4 groups:  Team Family Room, Team Bathroom, Team Laundry Room and Team Bedroom.  We each got a floor plan and proceeded to measure the area in feet.  Each 1" = 4'.  Now that we've figured out the area, we need to pick her flooring, which we will do at Homestead Flooring on Monday.  What would Mrs. Parkin do without us?

Parkinville Economy

Our job applications are due today for next month.  Our bloggers have applied for Table Captain, Banker, Librarian, Materials Manager and Custodian.  We find out on Monday what we'll be doing for the next month.  Very exciting!

Reading & Writing Non-Fiction

We are incorporating our social studies unit and our non-fiction studies, by studying the great state of Maine.  We read a book about Maine's geography, famous people, climate and jobs.  We made maps of Maine and included towns, cities and rivers.  Then we made posters detailing big Maine ideas. The poster below details Maine's climate.

Here's the book we read.

A poster of the Maine climate

Map of Maine

It was a very full week in Parkinville!  Come back next week for more news.

  

Weekly Blog #13

February 14, 2014

Written by:  Sawyer and Cole

Happy Valentine's Day!!
Our bloggers picked 2 images to share with you!  Take a look....

Announcements
Today is the last day before February vacation.  We celebrated by doing a little karaoke!  We each took a turn with the microphone and boogied down!   Yarmouth's Got Talent - here we come!!

Parkinville wishes Mrs. Parkin a very happy birthday on February 19th!

For those of you who couldn't attend your conference on Thursday, due to the snow day, Mrs. Parkin will be in touch with you to reschedule.

Math
We took the Unit 7 assessment today, which was on fractions.

Science
Just a quick note to let you know that the videos for the Motion and Design challenges were erased by accident.  We are sorry we can't share them with you, but trust us, we did great!!

Reading
We are still reading our non-fiction books.  We are reading both types of non-fiction books:  narrative & expository.  Narrative non-fiction conveys facts told as a story.  Expository non-fiction teaches facts, but doesn't center around a story.

Writing
We are writing essays on our Kid Blogs on a topic that we know a lot about.  Our bloggers are writing about wolves and sailing.  Each paragraph has an umbrella idea, which is the main topic.  Within that paragraph, we write details to support our umbrella idea.

Hoops for Heart
This week, we participated in Hoops for Heart with Ms. Lenehan's class!  We had lots of fun and we hope we raised a lot of money for the American Heart Association!

We hope you have a restful, fun vacation with your families!  See you when we return on Monday, February 24th!

Weekly Blog #12

February 7th, 2014

Written by:  Jasper and Ari

It looks like winter again with all this new snow!  The students of Parkinville enjoyed their snow day on Wednesday.  The fresh powder on the playground has made recess an adventure!

Announcements

Hoops for Heart happens next Tuesday!  We are very excited to shoot some hoops with Ms. Lenehan and Ms. Rhoads' class to raise money for the American Heart Association.  We all received a "We Jump, We Shoot, We Save!" packet from Ms. Pachuta.  It details all the information about the event.  Donations are due next week (please note:  donations are optional).

Valentine's Day is next Friday.  The students are welcome to make cards for each other and they'll have some time to exchange them.

Math

We've been working on fractions.....equivalent fractions, adding fractions and subtracting fractions.  We are also working on converting decimals into fractions and fractions into decimals.

Science

Last Friday, we concluded our Motion & Design unit.  We had fun presenting our design challenges to our friends and family.  Each group mastered their challenge and got their vehicle to move exactly as described in their challenge.  Videos of the challenges will be posted on the blog soon.

Reading

We've been learning all the different components that go into a non-fiction book, such as the glossary, the table of contents, facts about that subject and an index.  Today we learned that there are two different kinds of non-fiction books: narrative non-fiction and expository.

Writing

We are writing about the books we are reading on our Kidblogs.  Our comments on our friends' blogs have to be educated statements or questions regarding their blog.  

Winter Olympics!

The Opening Ceremonies for the 2014 Winter Olympics are tonight!  Mrs. Parkin gave us Olympic packets to help us get excited for the upcoming games.  The packet included information on the games, values and some history on the Olympics.   The students of Parkinville wish all of our athletes the best of luck during their events.  We'll be cheering them on from home.  Go USA!!!

 

Come back and see us next week!

 

 

 

Weekly Blog Post #11

January 24, 2014

Written by:  Piper, Olivia and Cole

Announcements:

Last Friday was Maddie's last day in Parkinville, so we decided to have a surprise party for her.  We put together a book for Maddie telling her what we'd miss the most about her.  We also had some treats, gave her some presents and took a class picture. We'll all miss Maddie!  Take a look at Maddie's send off...

We'll miss you, Maddie!

MAP Testing

We are all happy the MAP testing is over.  We finished up the Reading section on Thursday!

 

Our Augusta Field Trip

We had a great time on our field trip to Augusta!  We started out at the Maine State Museum.  We made arrowheads, by carving the edges with antlers.   This was a huge hit!!

Making arrowheads.

We also learned about a cargo ship, called the St. Mary, which was built in Phippsburg, Maine.  This ship transported goods from the East Coast to the West Coast via Cape Horn.   Unfortunately, the ship ran aground in the Falkland Islands.  There is a 40 foot section of the starboard hull located at the museum.  During the St. Mary presentation, we learned all about making sails.  We each took turns sewing a sail using a thick needle.

Sewing sails

 

After the museum, we went to the State Capital (after going through security!).  We visited the House of Representatives and the Senate chamber.  Our tour guide told us some interesting facts about the building, the portraits on the wall and the beautiful dome.  We were so excited to sit in the big chairs in the House of Representatives, while learning about the role they play in our government.  At each seat, there is a box with a green "yea" button, a red "nay" button, and a yellow "page" button.  This is how our Representatives vote!  If they have a message they'd like to give to another Representative, they push the "page" button and someone comes to deliver their message.  

Maine State Capital

Look at us sitting in the big chairs!!

Yea, Nay and Page buttons

Future Maine State Senators!

Math

We started Unit 7 - Fractions!  We played the Around The World game to learn facts about fractions.  We learned that the denominator number has to be bigger than the numerator number and lots of other interesting facts about fractions.

 

Science

We are working on our Motion & Design Unit.  We built cars with Kinex pieces, then attached a piece of string and a paperclip to the car.  We put washers on the paperclips for weight.  We hung the washers over the table edge and watched the car move along the table.  The more washers we put on the paperclip, the faster the car would move.  We were given a challenge to move the car across the table between 4 and 6 seconds.  We had to figure out how many washers to use to get the car to move across the table within that amount of time.

Kinex car

Writing

We are still working on our blog posts on KidBlog.   We are writing about the books we are reading, including information about the characters, the setting, and the story arc. 

 

Reading

Mrs. Parkin is reading Ruth and the Green Book.  This story talks about the difficulties African Americans faced in the 1950's. 

Ruth and the Green Book

Come back next week to find out what's happening in Parkinville!

Weekly Blog Post #10

January 10, 2014

Written by:  Jasper & Jake

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Welcome back!  We hope you had a relaxing vacation.  2014 is here and we are ready to roll.

Announcement:

Big news!  As a classroom, we decided that our new years resolution is going to be (drum roll, please)....be more responsible!   To help students increase their responsibility, in preparation for Middle School, students will no longer be able to call their parents to bring their forgotten items to school (every day items such as folders, instruments, homework, boots etc).  We are working hard to become more independent and will try to remember all the things we need for the day, when packing our backpacks in the morning.

Upcoming Dates:

Friday, Jan. 17th - We are going on a field trip to the Maine State Museum and the Capital Building in Augusta.  Please make sure to pack your child a snack and a lunch (no glass bottles or peanuts).  Please return the permission slip, if you haven't already. 

Thursday, Jan. 16th - MAP testing (8:45am - 10am).  Math

Monday, Jan. 20th - Martin Luther King Jr. Day - no school

Thursday, Jan 23rd - MAP testing (8:45 - 10am).  Reading

Science:

This week we worked with Kinex to help us learn about motion and design.  Kinex are a bit like legos. We broke into groups and tried building different things.   There will be classroom experiments during this unit and Mrs. Parkin would love volunteers.  Be on the lookout for an e-mail from her with more information, dates and times.  

Math:

We are working on partial quotients and rounding and division.  If you'd like to help your child with math, but are a little confused with the new method, click here.   Here is the link.

Writing:

Each of the students have a blog (on kid blog).  We're writing a summary about The Young Man and the Sea, as well as our thoughts on the book.  The students are welcome to comment on each other's blogs.  Mrs. Parkin has instructed us to make detailed comments that need to be at least 2 sentences long and we must include 1 question, as well.  

Specials:  In PE, we started playing basketball, which is really fun!  In art, we are working with 3 dimensional shapes.

Have a nice weekend and we'll see you next week.