Starting with Scratch!

We were first introduced to coding (also called programming) back in December during Hour of Code.  We really had fun experimenting with the different activities during Hour of Code.  A few months later, we got to meet some kids from BHMS that are on the robotics team, and are really good with programming using Scratch.

Ms. Diem asked them if they would come and teach us Scratch and how to use a MaKeyMaKey to program games and stuff and they said yes!  Every Wednesday for the last half hour of the day, we check out some laptops to use for Scratch.  Ms. Diem also got one MaKey MaKey for us.  We've had a few lessons on Scratch already.

Some of us created Scratch accounts at home and have created games and other programs.  We've even learned how to turn the computer keyboard into a piano, or a band!  Coding is not simple to do, but the more we do it, the better we get!

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Comic Life

Choosing a template.

In Comic Life, we are focusing on our Dear America books.  We are creating comics that summarize what we read.  We are focusing on narrating eight scenes from our book.  Everyone chose their own backgrounds, and the searched for pictures that fit our books.

After we did that, we used our graphic organizer (the wagon page) to help us know what to write.  We took each frame on the page to create an event with a picture and words.  In Jules' book, the main character ran away, so that is what she included in her summary.

Using our organizer to help with the text.

By Jules and Miles

The front page of a finished summary!

A page out of a longer summary.

Adding pictures.

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!

Who We Are Summative Assessment Showcase!

Who We Are

As part of our research during Dear America, we researched a country we were assigned. Some of the countries were Russia, Poland, England, and Japan. As soon as you knew it we were making slides for a video. Some of the slides were food, push and pull factors, inventions, and about the authors. It probably became one of the most liked projects. 

Then we wrote a script for the video. After we were done with our script we had it checked. Then we recorded our script on Explain Everything which we did on the iPads. When we were done it was so cool! Then we presented our presentations and everyone loved it!

By Jacob and Daniel

Graphing Waves of Immigration

Using a ruler to highlight just the
 country we were studying.

Adding all the answers together.

As part of our research during Who We Are, we calculated the population of the country we were researching.  We added up every 20 years, and later found the total population of those years.  Then we went to a website to create a graph, showing all the waves of immigration.  We created the line graph because it was clearest to show the biggest wave of immigration.

It was fun to create the graphs!  Miles did a graph for the Netherlands and Jules did a graph for India.  We both thought that create a graph was fun!

By Jules and Miles

Recording the information on an organizer.

We did lots of math during Who We Are!