Take a Journey Into Your Imagination

When Steven Ratiner, our poet in residence,  visited our classroom on Friday, he started the session with a lesson about the art of revision. He talked about how it is important to choose images for yourpoem carefully so the reader can see the story in their mind.  The title is important too and opens the door [...]

Read Full Post »

Chinese Poetry: Finding Your Own Area of Retreat

This past Wednesday, Steven Ratiner, our Chinese poet in residence, visited our classroom for the first time. After giving the children an overview of Ancient China, he explained how we will be borrowing poetic techniques from Ancient China, and will practice writing poems which will paint vivid images in the reader’s mind.
After hearing about events [...]

Read Full Post »

Artifacts of the Future

“What would people in the year 2525 learn about us if they went on and archaeological dig and discovered 19 tiny decorated clay pots from our class buried in the schoolyard?” That was the question posed to our class this week as an introduction to what archaeologists and historians can learn about the [...]

Read Full Post »

Welcome to Fourth Grade!

Welcome to fourth grade!  It looks like we are going to have a great class.  One of our big projects this year will be keeping our class blog.  A homework link will be included.  
Be sure to check weekly for updates about our classroom activities.

Read Full Post »

Owl Pellets

There was great excitement in our room today during our science class. Wearing gloves and using small tweezers just like scientists, the students began dissecting owl pellets. At first everyone was a little skeptical, but soon there were cries of, “There’s teeth and a skull in here!” and the real scientific work and [...]

Read Full Post »

National Park Trading Cards & Powerpoints

Today our class is preparing for some special visitors. On Friday, a third grade class from down the hall will join us for our National Park/Landmark presentations. After carefully researching a National Park or landmark of their choice, each child put together a Powerpoint presentation complete with photographs and information about the historical significance [...]

Read Full Post »

Magazine Writing Project Unveiled

Reading children’s magazines filled with amazing facts, engaging stories, and colorful photos is always enjoyable at school, but writing your own can be even more fun. After brainstorming a wide variety of topics ranging from lions to Athens, Greece, each child chose their own topic and has enthusiastically started research to write their own magazine.
Our [...]

Read Full Post »

Drumlin Farm Animal Educators

Soft rustling sounds could be heard coming from several covered crates in our classroom this afternoon as the students entered the room from recess. Noticing a huge tarp on the floor covered with dried leaves and surrounded by a huge plastic pen, everyone knew we were in for a real treat: a visit [...]

Read Full Post »

Writing Encouragement From Coach

There was great excitement and surprise last week when each child was presented with a portfolio of their writing projects from November through February. As the students reread each story, they were amazed at how much their writing has grown this year and they couldn’t wait to take their portfolios home to share with [...]

Read Full Post »

The Earth From Above

After concluding our extensive unit about Ancient China, we are now studying the geography of North America. We began by looking at antique maps of the world from the 15th century and how they differ from images of our earth taken from satellites. Although Google Earth offers excellent close-up images, today we [...]

Read Full Post »