Counting money game

Click below to play a
fun money counting game!
See the new tab at the top - more will be added later!

Warrior Award winners

 Gage is one of our warrior of character winners.  He is a good friend to others.

 Breanna is our warrior of math.  She has been working super hard on her math facts.

 Jeb is our other warrior of character.  I can always count on Jeb to be kind to others and caring.

Jalen is our warrior of reading.  He reads a lot during reading practice time and does good thinking about his reading, which he often records in his reading notebook, even during free reading time!

Newsletter 12-16-11

We are continuing to work on counting coins: pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and half dollars.  Please help your children handle money at home and give them some practice counting change.  Working with real change will help them out a lot!

Our snack cabinet is still pretty bare.  If you are able, please send in a healthy item for our class to share.  Good items are animal crackers, fruit snacks, pretzels, cheese crackers, graham crackers, cereal, you get the idea.  Think after Christmas snack sales!  Thanks so much!

No newsletter next week.  Enjoy your break!

  Spelling words for next week:
No spelling words for next week.  No words for the short week after break either.  Our next list will be the week of Jan. 9.

Upcoming events:
Dec.16 – Food drive ends
Dec. 20  – All School sing-a-long @ 1:45pm
Dec. 21-Jan. 3 -Christmas Break
Jan. 4 – school resumes

Our forest of Christmas trees

Our Book Covers

     We have been working on planning for our writing in Writing Workshop.  One way we are doing that is by starting with our cover.  Once we choose our topic, we choose a title for our book that has 1-3 words in it (to keep things simple and concise) and we work on our cover illustration.   We learned that our cover illustration and our title should work together to give our reader a glimpse into what our book is about.  We put lots of detail into our cover illustration.  Here are a few we have worked on.

Shapely Santas

Happy Birthday, Ryleigh and Connor!

Newsletter 12-9-11

        We have just finished our 2 digit regrouping unit in math and now we are starting money.  We are learning how to count coins: pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and half dollars.  Please help your children handle money at home and give them some practice counting change.  Working with real change will help them out a lot!
We have also been working on our illustrations in writing workshop.  We are learning how our illustrations drive our writing and help tell our story.  We are studying illustration styles of illustrators we know to help us with this.  One thing  in particular we are working on is character perspective.  We have learned that characters are shown from the front, back and the side.  Characters also have joints in their arms and legs and when we include them in our illustrations our readers better understand the story we are sharing.
The food drive continues until Friday, December 16.  Our school goal is 1,700 items.  If we reach our goal Mr. Stewart (the fifth grade teacher whose class is sponsoring the food drive) will do something REALLY crazy!  Last year we got to make him into a human ice cream sundae! Send in those items for the food drive!
Our snack cabinet is starting to look bare again.  If you are able, please send in a healthy item for our class to share.  Good items are animal crackers, fruit snacks, pretzels, cheese crackers, graham crackers, cereal, you get the idea.  Thanks so much!

  Spelling words for next week:
chore  dare  fire  more  square  shop  drove  lost  road  soap  girl  how  sports  before

Upcoming events:
Dec.16 – Food drive ends
Dec. 12 – music program for grades 4 and 5 @ 7:00pm
Dec. 20  – All School sing-a-long @ 2:00pm
Dec. 21-Jan. 3 -Christmas Break
Jan. 4 – school resumes

What is onomatopoeia?

Here is a good short video demonstrating onomatopoeia, words that imitate a sound.  We have been looking for words in our books to show this.  Here are some we found:

Upcoming Books!

     We have been telling our stories to each other to help get ideas of what books we want to write and illustrate.  Boy, do we have lots of ideas!  Each box is a book cover for a potential book.  We have each chosen one to start with and we are now working on our cover.  We will post some of our covers next week!

   

Newsletter 12-2-11

        Next week, from December 5-9, our school’s PTO will be hosting a Penguin Patch Holiday Shoppe. This is an opportunity for the kids to do some holiday shopping for family members while at school.  We will be visiting the shop Monday morning, December 5 to preview the items available.  The white envelope is for them to bring in money and notes on who they want to buy for starting on Tuesday.  They will need an envelope filled out before they can go shopping.  Extra envelopes are available at the office. 


The food drive begins Monday, December 5.  Our school goal is 1,700 items.  If we reach our goal Mr. Stewart (the fifth grade teacher whose class is sponsoring the food drive) will do something REALLY crazy!  Last year we got to make him into a human ice cream sundae! Send in those items for the food drive!


Our snack cabinet is starting to look bare again.  If you are able, please send in a healthy item for our class to share.  Good items are animal crackers, fruit snacks, pretzels, cheese crackers, graham crackers, cereal, you get the idea.  Thanks so much!


  Spelling words for next week: 
clear   deer   pair   shear   steer   cat   face   paint   flash   brain   again   outside   wanted   are 




Upcoming events:
Dec. 5 – Food drive begins
Dec. 12 – music program for grades 4 and 5 @ 7:00pm
Dec. 20  – All School sing-a-long @ 2:00pm
Dec. 21-Jan. 3 -Christmas Break
Jan. 4 – school resumes

December lunch menu

Click here for the December lunch menu

Click to watch a BrainPop Jr. movie about Thanksgiving.

Studying light

     Since we have just concluded our reading unit about the sun, we decided we wanted to do a few science lessons on light.  Today we predicted whether we would be able to see light through certain objects or not and then we tested and recorded our results.

     First we predicted.  Then we tested our predictions.

     Then we recorded our results.  We learned that scientists predict all the time and they are not always right!  That's how they learn new things.  Scientists also record their results to share with others.

     Here we are recording our results.

     We also learned a new word today - opaque.  Something that is opaque does not let light through it.  The tile, the foil, and the cardboard were all opaque.  The styrofoam was not opaque.  That one surprised a lot of us!