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.