Winding Down

This has been a busy and warm week in 4th grade. In literacy we have continued to look at mood, speaker and theme of poems including a fun matching game on Friday where students had to use reasoning skills to figure out which theme made sense with each poem. Students also shared their weathering and erosion learning as well as practiced their presentation skills by creating a collaborative Google slide presentation and presenting their individual slide to the class. These scientists shared knowledge on hoodoos and mushroom rocks, wind erosion and ice erosion, where to live to protect yourself from weathering and tons of other information in between.

Imaginative mathematicians began to design our dream playground this week. We brainstormed ideas, learned about simple machines and how they impact our playgrounds, measured our actual playground and some items within it and used data and graphing to determine which items were most important to us all. Students are very excited about this project and were beginning early on to draft ideas of how to best arrange their dream playgrounds.

We had a few “zig zags” in our schedule this week. For one, we were welcomed to a puppet show presentation put on by Swift House students called “Banish Bullying.” These middle school students have been working on a special curriculum which culminated in sharing this show with us. The puppets were entertaining and the content were meaningful. Our students were able to think critically about what to do in situations of bullying and to consider how best they can be an ally to others.

Another change was the Kaleidoscope House play on a variety of science topics Thursday morning. Our students enjoyed this show that combined music, theatre and singing to showcase the Kaleidoscope’s learning this year. On Thursday afternoon we visited with Swift House students again for their annual “Swiftville.” Each year Swift students design their own currency and economy with each student or group of students developing a plan for an item or experience to “sell” and working hard to get other students that visit the house to buy or invest in their product. Our students loved this afternoon and most brought home some treats as proof of their purchases! :)

We’ve also loved to get outside this week for snack on the tennis courts. Getting some sun and fresh air mid morning has been quite a treat!

Next week we are looking forward to completing our playground designs and building models, writing poems inspired by Love that Dog and listening to our dedicated 4th grade musicians in their first beginning band concert!