Spotlight On...

This student, who used MATH to bake cupcakes over vacation! Mrs. Z. shared that he made some cupcakes over break and he could only use a 1/4 cup measuring cup!He had to figure out how to measure 1/2 cup and 1 cup. What a creative way to use fractions in a fun way! And his mom reports... the cupcakes were delicious! Way to go!!!

Our Week In Review.

This is Jai's hydro powered invention.

What a quick week!  We started off with a snow day, and the excitement continued to build all week.

This week, we continued to learn about fractions. We began the next unit, multiplying fractions by whole numbers.  The children are slowly becoming more and more confident with this concept.  After vacation, we will review this concept before moving on to discovering the relationship between fractions and decimals. 

During Social Studies, we began to learn about the Southeast Region of the U.S. We will continue with some research about the SE after vacation, and will have another open notes/open folder quiz after vacation. Students should have a study guide at home.

As you know, we celebrated World Read Aloud Day with our new first grade friends!  Below are some pictures of us reading and then painting.  We also had a wonderful opportunity to Skype with author Jennifer Swanson. You can see a video of our Skype on Twitter.

Remember to check out our slideshow of pictures, created by the 4th graders, here.

Our Washington, D.C. projects were fantastic!  We had a gallery walk, and shared some thoughts about our peers' projects.  Some students completed the extra credit! Way to go!

MLK Memorial- made out of recycled materials!  Way to reuse!

Washington Monument- more recycled materials ~ created with a pizza box!

A recycled Pringles can served as the base of this Washington Monument!

We FINALLY had Creative Arts Friday!  During technology the students worked on recording their videos.  Stay tuned for these!  During Poetry Workshop, the students wrote raps!  PBL time focused on National Park research.  We were very happy to be back!

Here is a sneak peek of a video from Mrs. E. Williams' class!

World Read Aloud Day

We celebrated World Read Aloud Day with Mrs. Kolodny's first grade class yesterday.  We read, painted, used technology and talked with each other about our books and reading in general (pictures will be posted in our weekly update).  The students created a slide show of their book as part of a Google Classroom assignment.  Please click here to view the slideshow.   Make sure you click the PRESENT button to view it with the links live.  Feel free to leave a comment (you can comment when the presentation is in the edit mode) and let us know what you think.  All paintings were sent home with the children today. Keep the celebration going by reading a book together tonight!

Happy Valentine's Day !

T-Shirts of the Day

Yes she is!!! 

...and so is he!!

Our 2 Weeks In Review

Our last two weeks have been very busy! We have continued to build our community with  Monday morning 4th grade meetings. These meetings set the stage for our week, and are a wonderful way to reconnect with our friends after the weekend.

Students teaching their peers

Students as teachers

In Math, we have continued learning about fractions, with addition and subtraction of mixed numbers.  Students will take their assessment on this part of our learning today. Fractional concepts can be challenging. Students will continue to learn about fractions up to, and after vacation next week.

We had a guest teacher, Mrs. Richards, to work with us on our word study. Our focus has been about nouns and adjectives.

We are enjoying learning about the adventures of the children of Norway in our Interactive Read Aloud, Snow Treasure, by Marie McSwiggan.  This historical fiction novel takes place during WWII, and is full of exciting adventure.  The students have been practicing visualizing the story, through identifying the figurative language in the story, and sharing how this helps to get a picture in our minds.  We have also been working on writing summaries by finding the main idea, and supporting evidence in chapters.  Finally, we have started to discuss cause/effect in this story.

Many of our classmates have embraced the opportunity to give book talks, and share their love of a particular book.  What an awesome way to practice speaking in front of an audience!  Check with your child to see if he/she has given a book talk this year.  If not, please encourage them to do so.


Our essays are coming along nicely.  We continue to draft, and hope to publish before vacation!

We have taken our travels across the United States to the Southeast Region.  We will be discussing this for the next week.  Students should be working on their Washington, D.C. research projects at home, as they are due on Thursday.


A highlight of our morning meetings has been our "Tell Us Something" charts.  These do not need any caption.

"If you get the answer wrong, everyone gives you another chance." ~ Kevin

Congratulations to our Wow Note recipient last week!  Hard work pays off!

Looking Ahead:

• Washington, D.C. projects are due Thursday (2/16)
• Math ~ multiplying fractions
• Snow Treasure celebration (after vacation) 
• After vacation, we will begin our next science unit, Plant and Animal Adaptations
• February vacation ~ 2/20-2/24
• Remember to keep up with us through our Twitter account. Tweets can been seen in the side bar on the right, or follow us @mertenladybugs