Spotlight On...

NATE!  Last week, during his soccer game against Marlboro, Nate scored 6 goals!  That's a double hat-trick!  His team won, with a final score of 8-2.  Congratulations Nate!

Math Update and Visit from the Haffenreffer Museum

Today we practiced measuring angles using a full circle protractor.  We also learned how to draw angles using a full circle protractor.  The students have these protractors in their assignment books.

We also were introduced to measuring angles using a half circle protractor.  We will practice that tomorrow and work on drawing angles using the half circle protractor.  If your child would like to practice measuring or drawing angles, he/she can find directions showing how to do this here (full circle) and here (half circle).  We have an assessment on Thursday, and the students will have to measure and draw angles on this assessment.


We also had another fabulous visit from our Anthropologist in Residence, Mrs. Silvia.  She comes from the Haffenreffer Museum at Brown University. Mrs. Silvia discussed the life of the Native Americans of the Plains.  We learned about their clothing, homes and culture.  We also compared these Natives to the Inuit of the far north, and the Northeast Woodlands tribes.  It was a great day!

This is a calendar.  Each drawing represents a year.

This is how the Plains Natives hunted buffalo. They hid under a wolf hide (that's Derek under there) and used a bow and arrow.

 Many of us wanted to try on this traditional head dress.

Grinding berries (raisins), fat(butter), seeds (sunflower seeds) and meat(beef jerky) to make 

"pemakin", a type of food.

Sometimes  women carried their children in this type of carrier, held across the chest.

Sometimes the strap when around the head.  It was heavy!

Charlene is wearing traditional clothing made of animal skins. This was what the women wore before the Natives lived on the reservations.  Once they lived there, clothes were made of cloth, similar to what Charlotte is wearing.

The boys are all holding a piece of ONE outfit worn during a "grass dance".

Comparing the tribes we have learned about 

There is no homework tonight!  Happy Passover.

Our Week In Review

WOW!  What a week our fourth graders had!

The children worked diligently on the PARCC test on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.  The students enjoyed using the chromebooks in our classroom, and everyone enjoyed this part of our week.

We worked this week on our non-fiction "expert" pieces. Students have chosen their topics, planned their pages and created their tables of contents.  Today during technology workshop we typed these, and learned about how to "find" new fonts using Google Drive.  During poetry workshop with Mrs. Williams, we have been writing mythology poems in many styles.  Derek even had the idea to try a "spine poem" about mythological creatures.  We can't wait to try this out!

We have been working on geometry in Math.  This week we discussed lines, line segments and rays, as well as different 2 dimensional shapes.  We began learning about angles, including drawing and measuring them.  We have a geometry assessment scheduled for Thursday.

This week we focused on the Southeast region.  We have learned about the geography, climate and natural resources of this region.  We will have a presentation by Mrs. Silvia, our anthropologist in residence, about the Natives of the Southeast.  Our Southeast assessment is scheduled for Wednesday.

Mrs. MacMurray informed us on Tuesday that 17 of us have earned our BLACK BELTS in Recorder Karate!  Mrs. Merten is so excited for EVERYONE to earn this belt.  We all can do it!!!  If our class all earns a black belt, Mrs. Merten will be giving a special recorder concert for our class!  

Our week wrapped up with an EXTRA RECESS!  The children enjoyed the beautiful weather before the rain began.