A Year in Review...
Written by the students in 4-3
June 3, 2016
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The First Day of School!
By Andrea & Anika
On the first day school, everybody looked excited for the new and fresh start of the year. When we were standing in line that was the first time to see our teacher, Mrs.Cioni. When our teacher saw us she took pictures of us in small groups. Then we went in our class for the first time. Then we found our desks and then we put our school supplies in our desks. Then Mrs. Cioni introduced herself to the class. Then everybody in class introduced themselves in a silly way. Then she went through the class schedule and the schedule of the day. We colored letters and took pictures with them, and then Mrs. Cioni created words with the letters. We hope you have a great year in 4th grade with Mrs.Cioni next year!!!!!!!!!!
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Field Trips: Art Institute/Field Museum
By: Nolan and Jordan
This year we went on two exciting field trips to the Field Museum and the Art Institute. They were really fun field trips for our class this year. We enjoyed the field trips very much!
Field Museum
The Field Museum was the first field trip of the year. We were really excited to go to the Field Museum and going with all our classmates. We split into four groups and we were assigned with different chaperones on the trip. Then we got on a bus and we rode to Chicago. We were extremely excited to go. When we got there we went to the Native American section. We looked at a bison and how the parts of the body were used for different purposes. Then we went to the “Pawnee Lodge” and we looked at the ways that the Native Americans lived and traditions of Native Americans. We went on a scavenger hunt and we tried to find different artifacts that the Native Americans used. It was hard and fun learning about different things and trying to figure out what it was. We finished up our field trip and we had to get back on the bus. We were really sad that we had to leave, but it was a really good experience and was really fun.
Art Institute of Chicago (AIC)
Before we went to the Art Institute, we watched a video about safety at the AIC. Then we got into groups and hopped on the bus. We first went to a sculpture of a girl who couldn’t see and hear and she was in the eruption of Pompeii. Then we went to see some paintings. One was called “American Gothic.” We went around the AIC and saw a lot of famous and rare paintings and sculptures. Then we went and ate lunch. We went into the modern wing of the museum. We had time left so we went to to the Thorne Rooms which we were reading about in class in the Sixty-Eight Rooms. They were little tiny rooms that were from different countries and time periods. It was a wonderful experience.
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Google Expedition!
By:Elijah and Matthew
This year in 2016 we did this thing called Google Expedition! Google Expedition is when you wear these glasses. (Pictured below) You put them on and you see a certain place. But there is more to it! You get a device (a phone for example) and you get the Google Expedition app! You also put a phone through a slot on the Google Expedition glasses. That phone also has to have the Google Expedition app. From there you can control what the Google Expedition Glasses show. This is a fun contraption where it shows you places you could never go! (Unless you would want to risk your life to see what you can easily see on the Google Expedition glasses!) We got to go see volcanoes up close. We were able to do this because people who work at Google came to our school. This was one of our highlights of the year because this was very important. We loved this activity and we hope that we can do it again.
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Mystery Skype
By: Max
To start the year, we participated in the Global Read Aloud project. Our class read Fish in a Tree with many other classes across the world. We paired with another class. Our first Mystery Skype was fun and really exciting. We had to guess where that class was in the world. We had different jobs. In one job you have to answer the questions. In another job we had people that came up with questions to ask. Also we had different tools like computers and globes. Our class guessed where they were first. We found them in Canada!!
We did the next Skype with that class. We talked about the book called Fish in a Tree with them. We talked about the book a couple of times. Fish in a tree was a pretty good book.
In Fish in a Tree, a girl named Ally has dyslexia. Dyslexia is something that makes it hard to read. Ally is always getting into trouble. This is my highlight because it was a fun thing we did this year. Next year I want fourth graders to Mystery Skype because it was really fun.
We did a third Skype with a park ranger at Yellowstone Park. We did not know where he was at first so we had to guess where he was by asking yes/no questions about geological features of the park. He shared some facts about Yellowstone with us.
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Volcano Project
By Tate and Joey
We did the the volcano project during the volcano unit in science. We got to pick between doing a story about a eruption using facts about volcanoes. You could write an escape plan for if you lived by a volcano. You could do a persuasive letter getting someone to move near a volcano. You could determine the pros and the cons of a volcano. You could do comparing two volcano types. You could study a famous volcano. There were rules to doing the project like you had to include the vocabulary words and it was optional to make a volcano model. Joey did a project where he compared and contrasted the different volcano types. Tate did a project on Eyjafjallajökull, a volcano in Iceland, and described it. It is the highlight because got to study about volcanoes and see them erupt.
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The Yellow Card Game
By: Raegan
Everyone at least loves school a little, but mostly a lot. But, that doesn’t mean it’s not fun to take a break. One of the most common, beloved, and fun games in Mrs. Cioni’s room is……. The Yellow Card Game! Whenever we take a break, we beg her to let us play! Even if you didn’t know how to read, I bet it would still be fun! All of us love it! The very beginning is when the teacher says “ Let’s begin!” Then someone says, “Good morning”. But it’s not all that easy! You see, everyone gets one or two cards. Then, they have to read it. It would say, if someone says this, you do that. Like when it says ‘When someone barks like a dog, stand up and turn around three times’. The last thing is when we have somehow gotten ‘all done’ written on the board. Then someone stands up and says “ All done!” Oh! I’ve said too much! Can’t give away the whole thing, ya know. The best any class has ever gotten was 2 mins. and 7 secs. Our class best is 2 mins. and 18 secs. The whole point of the game is to finish the whole thing as fast as we can by working together as a team, listening to each other and paying attention to what is going on around you. Well, all of us love it! Some of us even want to make our own, to play with at home! Some even already did!
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Publishing Stories
By Emily
This year in fourth grade we wrote our own stories. We had Mrs. Cioni pick our partners for us. We had two people brainstorm together on what the story will be about. We also had to fill in the Shape of the Story. The Shape of the Story has rising actions. We also filled out the Shape of the Story and typed our story onto the computer. After that, we did a lot of editing and revising. We then printed our story out. Also, we got to illustrate our books. Next, we had to read our stories to the class. Then, everyone in the class got to pick some teacher in the school to read to. This was my highlight. I think this was a very fun experience in fourth grade. Next year in fourth grade, I hope the fourth graders will get to make their own stories in writing.
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Patton's 9th Annual Walkathon
for Make-A-Wish
By: Lorna
The 2016 Patton walkathon was a blast! We had so much fun and here are some reasons why:
You get to hang out with your best friends and you are raising money for kids with cancer, at the same time! The Walkathon is a great experience and it will be so much fun for the 3rd graders that are becoming 4th graders, because you can talk with your friends, get all your energy out, and you feel good about yourself because you are doing people good! The walkathon was definitely a highlight to fourth grade because it was just so fun and we had a great time! We did it all for the Make A Wish foundation! It was really fun to walk in the walkathon! Next year it will be really fun because next year will be our last- but the best walkathon! I’m glad we do it every year because it’s a great way to get outside and just have plain fun! Everyone enjoys the Walkathon and you try to see how many laps you can get in! The Walkathon in a great experience for all people! The Walkathon is so fun!
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Spirit Days
By: Megan
This year we had many fun days when we could dress up in our funny and wacky socks, cute and cozy pj’s, fun and cool beach wear, exciting sport shirts, and our very own Patton spirit wear. But to do all this you had to pay $2. All the money raised went to Make a Wish for kids who had cancer or another illness. This was my highlight of the year because we got to wear fun spirit wear and while we did that, we also helped kids make their dreams come true. We should totally do this next year because new kids will love this and it’s fun to bring and wear something cool. It was very nice to help kids who were sick by wearing something fun and doing our normal everyday things. Though I didn’t do all of these spirit wear days, It was nice to see people wearing this stuff. I’m excited to see how much money we made. I’m guessing there will be a lot of money since I saw how many people were dressed up for these spirit wear days. I look forward to seeing this next year!
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Pirates- the Musical!
By: Avery and Ava
This year for our show/program we did a play called Pirates- The Musical. It was about a stowaway coming aboard a pirate ship. The stowaway wanted to become a pirate. All of the pirates on the ship were just heading to a singing contest with the best pirate singer: The King of the High C’s! But when they hear the stowaway sing they know they have to take her. In the end the stowaway becomes a pirate, and everyone celebrates. Hip hip! Hooray!
The 4th graders next year might do the sequel to Pirates: Pirates- Shipwrecked. That’s pretty cool, right?
If the 4th graders do Pirates next year they will have so much fun because you get to act like pirates and say funny words, sing funny pirate shanties (songs), and you wear cool costumes! You can become part of many fun pirate games like Black Spot Tag. You can also become part of a pirate crew. You have been in plays before, but none of them are as fun as Pirates-The Musical.
Our play made people laugh out loud, that’s because we had many funny lines:
“Have you ever been six months at sea without a bath, or a shave, or a shower?”
“No, but once I went a week without brushing my teeth!”
Our play was the best play ever!!! Have fun next year, Fourth Graders!
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🎵Dance Parties!
By: Raegan
🎶 So just dance, dance, dance! 🎶
Oh, sorry. We were just jamming to the song Can’t Stop The Feeling sung by Justin Timberlake. We always learn, learn, learn. But sometimes it’s fun to just let loose and dance, dance, dance! We always have dance parties, and we always listen to the same, AWESOME, song! Can’t Stop The Feeling! It’s fun for everyone. Except for the four boys who hide under the back table. They just can’t stand our AWESOME dancing! We some times dance to spy music from Mission Impossible when we are trying to clean up quickly, but quietly. Duh, nuh, nuh! It’s really fun sparking new dance moves and seeing everyone’s favorite moves! It is also a good workout! Well, can’t give away all the secrets to how we have so much fun in Mrs. Cioni’s room.
🎶 So just dance, dance, dance!🎶
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Halloween Fun!!!
By: Molly
This year in Mrs. Cioni’s class, we had a very fun, enthusiastic Halloween party, and most people loved it, and I’m gonna tell you why!!! They loved it because we had lots of games to play including pumpkin bowling. You play by rolling a miniature size pumpkin into a bunch of water bottles. We also painted either a black cat, Frankenstein, a ghost, a witch, or a vampire. Also, we did a word search that was Halloween themed. For a special treat, we made vampire dentures,made out of tiny marshmallows, red frosting, and 2 graham crackers on the top and bottom. For another treat, we had cheese shaped like witch fingers. We also had a Cuties® shaped like a pumpkin, with a green piece of celery as the stem. I want to say thanks to the moms who helped out with the party. They did a wonderful job with it.
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Valentine's Day
By: Molly
Valentines Day, a wonderful time of the year, is the day of love and feelings. We had some sweets also including candy hearts, which were amazing!! The games we played were clothespin pass the heart. How you can play is to get at least 3-20 players and put the clothespin in you mouth to pass the plastic, delicate heart around the circle without ripping it. We also decorated glass containers and glued paper hearts and shapes in many different sizes around it! This is what happened on our amazing Valentines Day in Mrs. Cioni’s class!!!
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Our Reading Buddies!!
by Sandra and Sky
We have 1st grade buddies in Mrs. Litberg's class. Sky's partner is Faith and Sandra's partner is Cindy. We do some fun projects with our first grade buddies. We always read a book as a group then do a project. We alternate rooms with our first grade buddies. We loved when we hand-made presents for them in December. They also gave us presents too. We do activities around certain holidays like Thanksgiving. Just recently we did a Wordle about the Reshenkas Eggs.
Sandra's favorite thing to do was be able to get to know the first grade buddies a lot more, I've gotten to learn more about Cindy. She is really fun to play with and she's energetic. I love to learn more about her and so does she. I enjoy helping the first grade buddies and having fun with them. Cindy and I both like to trade our Christmas presents and see what we each got. It was fun to make awesome things at home for Cindy, and I think Cindy enjoyed it too.
Sky’s favorite thing to do with her first grade buddy was to get to know Faith. I love to help her and to enjoy time with her. I love making presents for her. I've gotten to know her more and she's gotten to know me more. I made her two presents and I made her a card as well. Faith is very playful and very adorable. It was nice spending my time with her and putting time into my gift for her. Faith has very beautiful hair. She is very nice.
We both love playing with both of them and having fun with them. We both think that we had so much fun. It was an awesome experience!!
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Breakouts!
By: Elijah and Matthew
This year in 2016 we did this thing called Breakout. Breakout is when you have 45 minutes to Breakout. What are you going to Breakout of you may ask? That is what we are getting into! So you have 45 minutes to Breakout. The teacher first set things up. You get one box (or more if required.) Then you set up things in a room that lead to other clues that eventually opens the Box. I forgot to say that you have to lock the box. If the person who is doing it Breakouts then they will find something inside the box. I also forgot to say that you put something in the box. If they don’t Breakout then they don’t get the thing inside the box. This was one of our highlights of the year. It was one of our highlights because Breakouts are fun games that help kids work together.
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Lit Circles
By: Emily and Lorna
This year in fourth grade we did Lit Circles with Ms. Miller’s fourth grade class. We got to pick the books and groups we wanted! Lit Circles are where you read a book in a group and you have jobs to do. The jobs are Discussion Director, Passage Master, Illustrator, Connector, and Summarizer.This is what you do when you are...
Discussion Director: You write down questions for your group to discuss.
Passage Master: You write down important/memorable moments from the book.
Illustrator: You draw a picture of your favorite part in the chapter.
Connector: You find a moment in the book then you can connect to yourself, others, and even things out in the world!
Summarizer: Summarizer is exactly what it sounds like. It’s when you summarize a chapter in the book.
This was a MAJOR highlight of our year in fourth grade! When 4th grade next year does it they will have a blast, because it was a very fun experience for us and we think that it will be a fun experience for 4th grade next year!
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Project Mulberry
Short Stories
By: Madelyn and help from Megan
In fourth grade we did a project off of a book called Project Mulberry . The book was about a girl named Julia and her friend Patrick and the project they were doing. For the project they had to choose an animal that they could grow and take care of. They had trouble deciding the animal but they finally chose silkworms. They took care of the worms, and Patrick learned a lot of stuff about the worms and tried to teach Julia about them. But she didn’t read the books that he gave her. She was scared of the worms at first, but she learned to love them.
They got their leaves from a man. It took forever to find them because they needed a special type of leaf called mulberry leaves for the worms. Julia’s mom didn’t like the man because he was black and when they stayed longer at his house her mom would get upset.
Their project was to embroider the life cycle of a silkworm. At the day they made the silk, Julia found out that they had to kill the silk worms. Patrick thought that she had read the books that he had gave her. She didn’t want to kill them. They got into a fight. Then they decided to not kill all the worms and saved some to show them off. They also decided that Julia didn’t have to watch them kill the worms. At the fair they got second place.
When the author was writing the story she had to find information about the silkworms for the book. So we had to pick a topic and study the topic, and write a short story about the topic. Some of the topics that people chose was volcanoes, Northern lights, dogs, tornados, pandas, famous people, and other things. We had to read these short stories to the class.
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Rocket Lab 2016
By: Nolan And Max
Building the Rockets
This year we learned about how to build a rocket. We looked at the real space rockets and we had to figure out how much power it would have to take to lift it off the ground and how it works. Then we started to build our own rockets and we had to follow the steps. It was kind of hard to build these rockets, we had to put all of the pieces together. It was frustrating and hard but when it was all done we were ready to launch!!!!
Launching the Rockets
When we launched the rockets it was the best part. Some people's rocket didn’t work right and did a nose dive. We got to watch everyone launch their rocket. We had to push a pin to launch our rockets. It was really fun to launch our rockets. It was fun and the best experience.
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Personalized Learning
By: Avery
This year for personalized learning we did two projects. The first project we did we got to pick a topic we didn’t know a lot about, and research it. We also got to present them. For the second project we did a design engineer project where we got to pick an object, and we got to help make it better. When we presented them it was cool to see what people designed. For these projects we worked with Ms. Miller’s class.
When you picked a topic, it was something that you knew little about. It would pick something that interests you. If someone else had the same topic as you, you could work with them.
This will be fun for next year’s 4th graders because they will get to experience the fun process of building, exploring, creating, teamwork, and best of all learning how to do research on the best topic.
I think it’s a fun project for people who are interested to explore a topic. I also think people will like it because you usually get wowed away at what you learned, and what other people learned.
I had fun this year because I got to work with my friends while I learned something totally new. I got really excited when I got to present too.
Some of the topics were: art, animals, science, history, building, and more.
Personalized learning is so much fun!
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Matter At Home
By: Molly
This year in science class we did a pick your own science experiment that involved matter. Matter is everything that you can think of, except heat and frost/cold. There were 2 different projects to do; you had to research a famous matter scientist and perform an experiment. So I looked up a few people to see what scientists they did and they did these projects: Avery did Marie Curie, Madelyn did Galileo Galilei, Raegan did Marie Curie, Matthew did Galileo Galilei, Emily did Marie Curie, Megan did Archimedes, Sky did Galileo Galilei, and I did Archimedes. Here is the link of the website:https://sites.google.com/a/sd25.org/4-3-matter-unit-2015/home: In conclusion, we had an amazing Matter At Home project this year!!
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Mix-it-up Day!
By: Raegan and Molly
This year we had an amazing Mix-It-Up day! Mix-It-up Day is when you get a student from each grade and you bring them together in one group. So each group would get one Kindergartener, one 1st grader, one 2nd grader, one 3rd grader, one 4th grader, and one 5th grader. Then they each meet in the same room and do activities! They have no idea who they will be in their groups, and they will be asked random questions about what they like and dislike. It was a blast!!!
We drew pictures of each other and put them all on a big black piece of construction paper. Then we wrote our names in white under our drawings. All the kids loved it, and went home with new memories. All the signs about Mix-It-Up Day are hanging up on the walls. They said it was a great way to make new friends, and they were right! Everyone made at least 3-5 new friends! It was a total success!
