Reading Day!

On April 2 our whole school had reading day! We got to read all day which was fun!

When we got to school, the desks were pushed back for us to put the blankets down. It was a half day so no math!!! We got to bring slippers, a blanket, and a small stuffed buddy or a small pillow. First we got to see our kindergarten buddies and read with them for the last time in reading month. We also made a certificate for reading for our buddy and they made one for us.

Then we had snack and went to art and finished our projects. When we got back to the room, some of us went to read around the school. We got to read in the media center or fine arts wing. The others got to build a fort in the classroom.

The halls where crowded with excited readers. It was my favorite day! Did we mention we got to wear our pj's?! How we made the fort was with chairs and the blankets from home and some pillows or a stuffed buddy. We also got to go in it and play Minecraft. I think next year it will be just the same but no Minecraft.

Now you see why reading day was the best day ever!!! Turns out reading day was actually a lot of fun.

By Bella and Mustafa

Reading Month!

Did you know March was reading month? Well it was!! Here are some of the things we did.

For the first week we read with our kindergarten buddies which was really fun. We also made a really cool door cover and we all put our favorite books on it.

The 2nd week was fun too. We did no electronics starting on Monday for Screen Time Shut Down.  You had to turn in at least one ticket which meant you shut down screen time for that whole day. At the end of the week Bella and Eliana have won the award of a gift card that had 10 dollars in it to buy a book at Barnes and Nobles. 

The next week we did reading with are buddies and we had to fill a survey about reading. We used that survey for math where we were learning about graphs.  Both our buddies and us took the survey on our iPads.

After that week we had a book mark contest.  Everyone decorated a book mark for reading month.  The class voted on all of them and we picked one winner.  Everyone will get a copy of the winning book mark!

The last week we made bookmarks for our buddies and they made them for us and on the same day we got to read around the school, and we got to wear our pajamas. 

That is what we did in reading month.

By Brandon and Ryan

Buddy Lunch Fun!

Similarities with our Kindergarten Buddies!

International Dot Day

By Eli

Have you ever herd of International Dot Day? Dot Day is a day where people from all around the world come together and celebrate dots. It is every year on September 15th. I interviewed 5 people and 4 said that dot day was exciting in it's own way. 1 person said it was fun. There's so much to learn about Dot Day!  

To kick it off, we read a story called The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. It's about a girl named Vashti who said she couldn't draw. Her art teacher asked her if the blank paper in front of her was a polar bear in a snowstorm. Vashti said "no, it's blank." Her teacher said you can do something. So Vashti drew a dot in the middle of the paper. The next time she went to art class Vashti saw that her dot was framed and hung it over the teacher desk. Vashti said "I can draw a better dot than that!" She drew big dots and small dots and green dots and red dots and many more dots! One day all the dots were displayed and her dots were everywhere! A little boy was sad because he didn't know how to draw and said he could barely draw a straight line. Vashti told him to draw one, and then sign it, the same way her teacher did for her.

Between us and our buddies, we made enough dots for our own dot museum, just like Vashti in the book! We also got to use a really fun app called colAR to bring our dots to life! They jumped off the screen of the iPad! It was so much fun celebrating Dot Day!

Valnetine Buddy Fun!

Picking out the decorations.

We did an activity with our buddies from Mrs. Steffens Kindergarten class for Valentine's Day.  Our buddies and us made a valentine for elderly people in retirement homes.  This was a part of a project for DoSomething.org.

We interviewed the kindergarteners to find out three things about them.  This was included in the Valentine card.  They did the decorating and we did the writing.  We think that this session of buddies was very fun!

By Riley and Panteli

This is a cool Valentine!

A Valentine in process.

Look at all we were able to send to the elderly!

Economic Adventures!

Working with our third grade friends, we wrote stories that had an economic problem.  The best part is, we animated them using the iPads on an awesome program called Toontastic!

You have to check out our cartoons!

Toontastic's ToonTube

January Buddies

Every month the Thinkers come together with Mrs. Steffen's kindergarten class and we make a project together.  In December we made snowflakes out of paper.  In January, we went online and made snowflakes by cutting the online paper.  We enjoyed helping the kindergarteners, and I hope they enjoyed it too.  The reason that we did this project online was so that we could help the kindergartener's technology and their hand strength.  Overall, I think we all enjoyed January buddies!

By Barry

December Buddies

Every month we meet up with Mrs. Steffens Kindergarten class.  In December when we met, we created snowflakes out of paper.  The teachers assigned a fourth grader to a kindergartener and us fourth graders brought the scissors.  We cut the paper to get a square, and then folded the paper a bunch of times.  We cut the paper in the center and opened up the folded paper and voiola!  You have a snowflake made of paper!  I hope everyone enjoyed the project!

By Barry