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

We Love Chess!

Around Thanksgiving our class started playing chess.  A lot of people wanted lessons, even our teacher!  So the people who wanted to learn were getting taught.  It took some time for people learn.  After everyone who wanted to learn had learned, the class decided to have a chess tournament.  It was a lot of fun for everyone to watch and participate in!

By Katie and Claire

Fun Sock Fridays!

Every Friday the Thinkers have a choice to wear fun, exciting socks.  At the end of the day, the Thinkers put their feet in for a picture.  The Thinkers enjoy doing this because it is fun to look at everyone's cool socks.  The Thinkers wear all kinds of fun socks!

By Josh

Mapping Our Classroom!

This morning Ms. Diem started moving desks around while we watched. Then she drew with chalk on the floor! She drew a map grid, and we turned it into a game-like activity. We found a square on the grid stood on it, and people had to say what coordinate you were standing on. We also measured in meters and converted it to miles using a map scale. We explored coordinate grids, map scale, physical characteristics, human characteristics, cardnial directions, intermediate directions, and mapping overall! It was so fun!

Now the room is back to it's normal set up.

Space Podcasts!

The 4th graders in Ms. Diem's class made podcasts about space.  We learned a lot about space.  We enjoyed drawing our slides in Pixie.  The past part was it felt like we were going up into space!

You can watch our Space Podcasts by clicking HERE.

Homophones!



Our eBook on Homophones!



Our class made a book homophones.  Each person made a card of a set of homophones and wrote a sentence with the homophones.  We then drew a picture showing each of the homopohnes. 

After we did the homophone cards, Ms Diem made them into a a book on Scribble Press.  An example of homophones is there, they're, and their and so, sew, and sow.  Homophones are words that sound the same but are different in meanings and spellings. 

Art Smarts

Art Smarts was a blast!  We learned about Keith Haring and how his work often showed movement.  (You can visit his kids site here!)

Our class split into two groups.  One half was the dancers, the other was the drawers.  When the music started, the dancers danced, but when the music stopped, the dancers froze, and someone drew them in the position they were in.

After everyone got to dance and draw, we cut out the drawings and glued it to a poster.  Then we added the movement lines.

Every class in the school made a poster.  The posters were hung up in the school all together.  It is very cool with all the posters next to each other!

By Nikoletta and Gabrielle

We even ended with a conga line!

Getting ready for conferences!

 Getting ready for our first round of student-led conferences!

Disability Awareness Day

During Disability Awareness day, MS. Diem's class learned how it is to have a disaility.  We learned how hard it is to have a disability.  We also learned that even if you have a disability, it doesn't have to stop you from doing something!

Inventions and Innovations!

 We are just wrapping up our unit!

The unit was called We've Got The Power, and it's in the Transdisciplinary Theme of How The World Works.  For this unit, we studied energy and innovation.  Our focus was heat and electrical energy, along with magnets.

For our final project we had to invent a new toy or tool, or innovate something to make it better.

There were SO many great ideas!  It was fun watching everyone present!  There were lots of questions asked, and lots of answers given.