Weekly Reflection: December 19

Reporter: Caden       Photographer: Brooke

 For our science experiment we had to figure out how to light a lightbulb with a battery and a wire!!!

The 5th grade show was a success!!!

   This week we got to see the 5th grade show. It was about celebrating holidays all around the world like Hanukkah and Christmas. For science we learned about Thomas Edison and how he created the lightbulb. We did an experiment about trying to make a bulb light up with a wire and a battery. It was very fun and very challenging. During Art class we watched the movie The Grinch  and drew a picture of the Grinch. It was very fun. Our V.I.P. this week was Caden and his book recommendation was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. On Thursday we met our Reading buddies and we exchanged gifts. We also got a chance to read the book The Gift of Nothing.

Weekly Reflection: December 12

Reporters: Max and Grace

This week we were doing science about electricity. During this unit we were finding the hazards inside/outside your house. The next day we were doing electricity with balloons (static electricity). We would rub the balloon against a wool cloth and put it on something and see if it would stick. Later we would rub an object such as a comb against an other object such as fur. Then you would see if there would be any effect if you put it next to a styrofoam peanut. Later we would rub fur against a ruler then put it next a tinfoil airplane and see if there was any affect.

During the week we did the Hour of Code. We did it during LMC. We would go on the CODE website and there would be tutorials of how to code and how to use coding blocks. Here is how you could get on it:  http://pwiscoding.weebly.com/4.html

Weekly Reflection: December 5

Reporters: Grant and Alli     Photographer: Jake

Our class working on their research for psi.

This week we started PSI! In PSI, we research a topic we want to learn about. We partnered up with Ms. Miller's class and made our questions. If we wanted, we partnered up with other students. We split into two rooms. We made an audience page, a documentation page/ notes page, a reflection page, and a resources page. We like PSI a lot because we can do it all on our own! We all have different topics. We could choose any topic we want. We can interview people that could help us. It is a really awesome time when we get to do PSI.

This week we also started a new science unit. We started the electricity unit. We learned how to be safe in our house like not to put forks in toasters while it's plugged in. We also did a KWL. We think it will be really awesome.

Weekly Reflection: November 21

Reporters: Amanda and Jakub   Photographer: Sophie

A VERY BUSY WEEK!!!

 This is us doing D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read)

This is us presenting our Native American Relocation Projects.

We started reading The Fourteenth Goldfish about a month ago as part of the Global Read Aloud challenge, and today we just finished it by listening to the author, Jennifer Holm, read aloud the final chapter.The story is about Ellie, a 12 year old girl, who had a goldfish, who she thought, lived for 7 years. But, her mom was just replacing the goldfish when they died. Ellie saw her thirteenth goldfish dead, and that's when her mom finally told her what she did. Ellie's grandfather, Melvin, got a jellyfish liquid that can make people young, and Melvin made himself 13 again. Many things happen in this book, and I suggest you read it. Its a great book!

We were learning about Native Americans for the last 5 weeks. We were studying about specific tribes. Then we took a quiz about the specific tribes. Then we moved the tribes into a different region. We had to study the new region and we had to write about what the new region tribes wear, eat, and live in. We had to find skills that our tribe had in their own region that made it easier to adapt to the new region. We also had to find disadvantages for our tribe in their new region.  We also had to make a presentation for the class on google slides.

Weekly Reflection: November 14

Reporters: Kaitlyn and Reese    Photographer: Anthony

Veterans' Day Assembly

This when the veterans came to our school. 

We had a awesome assembly on Tuesday November 11. Retired veterans came to our school to talk about what it was like to be in the army. Kids from all grades asked questions to the General. The General talked about how his most accomplished badge was his parachuting badge. You had to complete 4 jumps to earn the badge. There is a 5th jump too, but you are guaranteed to get the badge if you complete the 4th jump. If you get hurt on the 5th jump you still earn the badge.  Thanks to all veterans for serving our country and giving us freedom!

This week in the LMC we completed our Native American tribe chart. We described the land, climate, natural resources, food, clothing, and housing. Every one did a different task for their tribe. Every group had a different tribe. Each tribe shared knowledge of their tribe with the other groups.  Groups will use this knowledge for our Relocation Project. 

Field Museum 2014

Reporters: Caden and Grant

Field Trip to the Field Museum

 Mrs. Cioni's Class

 Patton 4th Grade

Mrs. Cioni's Class

On Monday we had a field trip to the Field Museum! We had a tour and saw a bunch of awesome things. First we headed over to the Early America section. We learned about different Native American tribes. We saw a giant bison. Then, we went in an actual Native American house. It was called the Pawnee lodge. They told us about how the Native Americans lived in the lodge. Next, we learned about the bison hunt. There were lots of cool clay models that showed us what it looked like. After that, we were able to see a bunch of Native American artifacts. We took pictures of the artifacts and wrote them down on a sheet of paper. Then, we went to eat lunch. After lunch, they took us to the mummy exhibit. There, we saw mummies and some cool replicas. We also got to see Sue the T-rex! We learned about how the elephants are becoming endangered because people are hunting them for their tusks. We also saw Sue's actual head! We had the best day ever!

Fun facts:
The real head of Sue is so heavy (600 pounds) that they put it in a glass case and couldn't put it on the real model!

Native American children didn't go to school, instead they had to help do chores.

One bison could feed a person for one whole year!

Many families lived in the lodge at once.

In the lodge, they always had a fire burning, yet not many houses burned down.

No one has ever found a left hand of a t-rex.

Only two right hands of t-rex's were ever found.

The person who found Sue was named Sue. That's how Sue got her name.

More elephants are being born with no tusks.

Weekly Reflection: November 7

Reporters: Caden and Tina     Photographer: Charlie

Stuffed Animals Day

Unit 3 For History Alive

     Today we finished our unit on Early America.  We also played jeopardy to study for our unit 3 test.  We learned about 7 different regions. Regions: Northwest Coast, California-Intermountains, Plateaus, Southwest, Great Plains, Eastern Woodlands, Southeast. We learned about how Native Americans had to adapt to their surroundings.


      Also we started printing and recording our personal narratives. On Monday author, Barb Rosenstock, visited us and told us about writing. She also told us about people who are damaging national parks. She told us that a BABY sequoia  tree is the size of our commons and people are cutting them down to make toothpicks! TOOTHPICKS!

     On Friday we had a stuff animal  day! We got 50 stars! We were able to bring our own stuffed animal to school. We also watched a video about Veterans' Day.

Weekly Reflection: October 30

Reporters: Grace and Brooke    Photographer: Max

Reading Buddies and Early America

Making pumpkin glyphs with our Reading Buddies.

 Using text features to figure out Early American artifacts.

Working in a group for History Alive. 

HISTORY ALIVE: In history alive we are learning about Early America. We learned about places in Early America. We learned about different tribes, geography, and their artifacts like what they lived in and what their tools were. 

READING BUDDIES: We worked with our first grade reading buddies this Tuesday! We made paper pumpkins showing our favorite fall things! We had loads of fun and hope we do something like that again!!!

Weekly Reflection: October 24

Reporters: Aidan and Grant  Photographer: Alli

                                             

All dressed up to go to the symphony.

Today, we went to see the Chicago Symphony Orchestra perform Hallowed Haunts. All the fourth and fifth graders at Patton school went. We listened to the songs, Fire Bird, In The Hall Of The Mountain King, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Fairies and Giants, Harry Potter, and Uranus The Magician. In the performance, there was also a play. We sat on the second balcony. Mr. Larson was there! We saw cool things on the way, like statues and the Art Institute. We even saw the Bean! At the show, all of the performers dressed up in costumes. There was a crazy "magician" that was in the play. There were cool lights that shined on the roof. We all dressed up in nice cloths. It was very fancy and there were musical symbols in the carpet! We got to sit in velvet chairs and got to listen to some great music!

Weekly Reflection: October 17

Reporters: Jake and Grace  Photographer: Amanda

This week's V.I.P. book recommendation.

MATTER AT HOME

Over the past 3 weeks each student has been working on their matter at home project. A matter at home project is where each student studied a scientist and did an extension of one our lessons.One popular extension was melting chocolate. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday each student shared their hard work.  Some scientists we studied were Marie Curie,  Zacharias Jonson and Archimedes.  Some extensions we did were Quicksand, Describing Matter and Mixing Liquids. 

Weekly Reflection: October 9

Reporters: Jakub and Sophie    Photographer: Kaitlyn

Whatzit?

 Whatzit? acts like a liquid when you hold it in your hands. It droops down from your hands.

Whatzit? acts like a solid if you try to move it quickly.

Science

We did a science experiment. The experiment was like quick sand called "Whatzit?". First we had to quickly jab our finger into the Whatzit?. We had to try to touch the bottom of the bowl in 1 second. Next we had to predict and we predicted it to be a solid. When we actually did the experiment you could not touch the bottom of the cup. So it was a solid. The second experiment was to slowly push our finger into the Whatzit?. We had to touch the bottom in at least 10 seconds. Next we had to predict and we predicted it to be a liquid. It moved out of our way and we could touch the bottom so it acted like a liquid. Then we got to pick two experiments. We picked to hold it in our hand. It acted like a liquid and found cracks to  escape. The next one we did was pouring it on the wax paper, it froze like a solid and it stayed in the same spot and did not move it acted like a solid.

The Symphony

The Halloween Symphony is coming up.  The symphony is on Friday, October 24. We will be sitting in red velvet chairs on the lower balcony.  The Symphony will be playing many songs like, Uranus In The Hall of The Mountain King, The Sorceress' Apprentice. There will be actors acting out the songs. Be excited! The show will be soon!

Weekly Reflection: October 3

Reporters: Reese and Anthony     Photographer: Ryane

Mixing Solids

We had three solids to weigh.  

After weighing them individually, we weighed them together. 

Then we read the scale.

In science we created our own fair test for evaporation. We were put into groups to do this. One group tried different liquids, such as water, milk, soda, and dish soap. One group tried doing one cup of water in the sun and one with out the sun.  One group did in the wind and one that was not in the wind. One group did in the freezer, one in the fridge, and one in regular room temperature.

In another lesson, we weighed metal beads, pop corn seeds, and pop corn. Then we described them in our note book and recorded each weight.

This week we played another yellow card game card. This game involves speed, paying attention, working together, and having fun.  This time we zipped through the game and none of us made any mistakes. We made a huge come back from last time.  Last time it took us 3 minutes 36 seconds. Now we did it in 2 minutes 40 seconds. We still haven't beat the high score of 2 minutes 7 seconds, but we hope to beat it soon.

Weekly Reflection: September 26

Reporters: Olivia and Tina   Photographer: Caden

SCIENCE DAY!!!

We were measuring how heavy the clay was. 

We melted big lumps of wax.

On Monday we had a Science Day. We rotated around to all the fourth grade classes. In Mrs. Ricci's class we proved that air has mass and takes up space by doing science experiments. One of them was blowing air under a cup full of water and the water level went down because the air forced the water out of the cup.

When we went to Ms. Miller's class we learned how the solid state changes into a liquid state. We learned how ice(a solid) can change into water(a liquid). Heat is what makes a solid melt into a liquid.
If a solid melts into a liquid the will still have the same weight.We learned that any liquid can change
into a solid by freezing it because she froze olive oil.

In Mrs. Koenig's class we learned how solids can change into a liquid and back to a solid.  To change a liquid into a solid you have to add cold and to change a solid into a liquid you add heat. Once a liquid stays out to long it starts to turn back into it's solid state because it cools off.

When we went to Mrs. Cioni's class we learned that changing the shape of a solid won't change the solid's volume. We used a graduated cylinder full of water and put a piece of clay in the graduated cylinder. The clay displaced the water and we were able to measure the volume of the clay.  Then we changed the shape of the clay and put it back into the water. We learned that changing the shape of a solid doesn't change the volume of the solid.

We had a fun time at all the classes doing science experiments. We learned a lot and wish we can do it again.

Weekly Reflection: September 19

Reporters: Charlie and Brooke   Photographer: Grace

Every Friday there is a lucky student who gets to be the V.I.P. 

The V.I.P gets to tell a little bit about themselves and share a special book that they have read.

SCIENCE:
This week for science we weighed clay in different shapes like a sphere, log, and a pancake on a kitchen scale. Then we recorded the weight. Almost every time we got 65 grams for the clay. The cubes are a different story... The cubes weighed 1 gram each in total of 25 grams so there were 25 cubes. Then for are second experiment we weighed water on a  kitchen scale. We learned that you can change a the shape of a solid but the weight will stay the same unless you add to or take away from the solid.

BACK TO SCHOOL BASH:
The Back to School Bash was canceled two weeks ago because of the big storm that caused a power outage in the school. So we scheduled it again. So tonight is the Back to School Bash!!!! We are excited about this and hope to see everyone there.

Weekly Reflection: September 12

Reporters: Max and Aidan       Photographer: Grant

We are doing science experiments with solids, liquids, and gases.

Experiments: 

We learned in class about solids, liquids, and gases. We did this by having different balloons  with different substances in them such as: rice, dish soap, carbon dioxide, flour, and water. First we felt the different balloons and wrote our observations. Then each of us cut the balloons and poured the substance inside the balloon into different bowls. Then we described what the substance looked like and wrote our observations.Then we did some experiments to see how solids, liquids, and gases acted.  For example, we used the syringes to experiment with how they come out differently when you put your finger over the top and when you don't. We also talked about which substance was a solid, liquid, and gas.

Listening to Sounds: 

During Writing, we went outside and we were going to listen to sounds. We would be quiet for five minutes and we were going to write what we heard outside such as a lawn mower, cars, cicadas, etc. After the five minutes were up we discussed what we wrote. Then we wrote about a sound that we heard.  We learned that adding sound to our writing helps the reader understand our stories better.

Weekly Reflection: September 5

Reporters: Alli and Jake    Photographer: Keira

 In Social Studies we played Jeopardy to review landforms and bodies of water.  

Jeopardy:

This week we played Jeopardy. We learned how to play Jeopardy. We learned that you can play many different subjects with Jeopardy. This Thursday we did geography for a subject. We reviewed map skills playing Jeopardy the day before we took a test.

Yellow Card Game:

This week we also did the yellow card game. It's a game where there are 35 cards that tell you something to say or do when someone else does something. We are timed to see how fast we can do all of the directions.  This game teaches us to focus, follow directions, pay attention to others, and work together as a team.  So far we've been able to complete 35 directions in 3 minutes and 13 seconds.  Mrs. Cioni's fastest class was able to do it in 2 minutes and 7 seconds.  We hope to beat that time!!!

Weekly Reflection: April 1

Reporter: Colin     Photographer: Noah

Library teacher as our teacher.

April 1 is April Fool's Day, and this year the teachers had some fun with it. All the teachers switched places! Mrs. Melamed, the librarian, was teaching our class, while Mrs. Cioni taught the 3rd graders how to play recorder in music class for the first time. The regular music teacher was in Mrs. Goumas' room. Then, at 10:00, there was an all-school recess, and after that we went to our regular day. So this was certainly a fun day!

Weekly Reflection: January 24

Reporters: Harry and Aiden

Last week we learned about Martin Luther King, Jr. We learned that MLK, Jr. gave the speech "I Have A Dream". It took place on August 28, 1963. Also we learned about Gandhi who fought for the Indians against the British.

This week, we are learning about immigrant kids. The book told us that kids and families sailed on a boat with thousands of other people on board as well. When they arrived in New York, they had to get a check up with a doctor to see if they had a disease. If you had a disease, they may have been sent back to Europe.  Families were sometimes separated from other family members.  Immigrants were nervous to see the doctors.