Weekly Reflection: September 4

Reporters: Raegan and Nolan  Photographer: Emily

Here is our first VIP! Mrs. Cioni shared fun stuff about herself with the class.

Our first week...
This week we learned about geography stuff, like latitude an longitude. Latitude and longitude helps you find places on the Earth.

We have just started the Forty Book Challenge- to read 40 books in 40 weeks. Some students have already finished their first book. We also have started reading workshop. We have been doing good. We're quiet and smart.

We have gotten many compliments from many teachers like Mr. Dolniak, Mr. Whitaker, Ms. Gordon, Mrs. Melamed, and our very own awesome teacher, Mrs. Cioni! We will tell you about are class stars. We get stars if we are good. We get a special treat or prize if we get 50 stars. We have 35 stars so far in ONE WEEK! We can already feel our prize coming!

Weekly Reflection: May 8

Reporters: Alli and Grant   Photographer: Jake

PSI, Volcanoes, and SKUNK!

This week was awesome! We had so much cool stuff to do and had a lot of fun. This week we had PSI presentations. They were really cool because we all got to create something related to our projects like Rube Goldberg Machines, hovercrafts, cookbooks, 3-D printed models, and more.

We also got to present our Volcano projects. We could make a poster, a volcano that exploded, or one that didn't. 14 students chose to explode their volcanoes, while 2 made really cool 3-D models that didn't. 2 students made posters. It was really fun watching all of the eruptions, and seeing the posters and volcanoes!

This week we also had PARCC which had 1 reading test and 2 math tests. We were also introduced to a new game called SKUNK. It's where someone rolls dice and you can choose to keep the score and sit down, or risk it and stay standing. But if the person rolls a 1, you lose your points. The person with the most points at the end wins.

All in all, it was a great week!

Weekly Reflection: April 10

Reporters: Ryane and Olivia    Photographer: Tina

These are the river tables we built.

Rivers Shape the Land!

This week we made river tables. We learned about how water changes Earth's surface in science.  On Thursday we saw how water shapes the river. On Friday we learned how water reacts to different factors.

One of the factors is rocks and debris. We put the rocks in the middle of the river table. Then we saw how the water went around the rocks then combined back into one river. We also put a dam in the middle of one river table. The water squeezed through the crack of the dam.

Another factor was a slope. Sloping the river made the water go faster. The water went straight to the mouth of the river. It didn't have to go around or through anything.
 
The last factor was the source or adding more water. The water had more force so you could see a clear path of the river. There was a big path rather than a small one.

Building the river tables was really fun and messy.

Weekly Reflection: March 13

Reporters: Grace and Max   Photographer: Aidan

Poetry Wall in the making

Pi Day 2105
On Friday we celebrated Pi day at school. Tomorrow 3-14-15 at 9:26.53 is when it is Pi day starts. Pi is  the circumference divided by the diameter of a circle. Pi is 3.141592653... which means it is an irrational number which is a number that keeps going and going and never stops.

Poetry Unit
We are learning to write different types of poems in class. We are also reading a poem called "Casey at the Bat". We talked about the setting,  the mood, and the theme (or lesson) of the poem. We were assigned a stanza of the poem to summarize and recite. We were set up in partners to recite it on Explain Everything. Some stanzas we did as a class. Listen to it here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pun5ncnciH0&feature=youtu.be

Weekly Reflection: March 6

Reporters: Grant and Alli   Photographer: Jake

PERSONALIZED LEARNING PRESENTATIONS:

This week we did a lot of awesome things. One thing we did this week was PSI (Personalized Learning) presentations. We got to present are own projects and watch others share their projects. We got to present on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Some topics that a lot of people did were:

• Sicknesses
• Video Games
• Animals
• Soccer
• NASA
• Technology
• Sports

There were a lot of cool presentations. Not only did we just research something, we got to do something with our research! We could make a special presentation, or make YouTube videos, make a poster, and a lot of other stuff!

PARCC TESTING

This week we also had 5 PARCC tests. On Monday and Tuesday, we had math units 1 and 2. On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday we took ELA tests. We read passages provided by the test and answered questions about them. At the end of each unit, we got to write a written response.

It was really fun writing the extended response because we write our own story. Even though the tests were hard, everyone had a great week.

Weekly Reflection: February 27

Reporter: Ryane and Olivia  Photographer: Jakub

Field Trip to the Art Institute of Chicago

One group got to create art like Jackson Pollock's masterpiece on their tour.

They got to throw pieces of string to create abstract art.

These are the strings that we got to walk through.

It felt like cold rain.

This is a picture of one of the Thorne Rooms.

This week the 4th graders went on a field trip to the Art Institute of Chicago. It was a lot of fun. We got to take a tour with a docent and explore with a group. During our tour we saw a piece of abstract art and a sculpture with dangling tubes that we got to walk through. During our free time some people saw the Thorne rooms and many enjoyed looking at the armor. Some people also went to the touch gallery where we got to touch the sculptures and the plaques were braille. At the end of our free time one group went to the puppet room. They got to play with puppets and put on a show.

Explorers of the New World

 A few weeks ago we started researching explorers of the New World.

We started sorting and glueing our facts.

This is a picture of someone typing their research paper.

At the start of February, we all started researching a specific explorer of the New World. After  researching and organizing our facts, we began to type our paper. We learned a lot about our explorer and are now excited to create a website about our explorer. We are excited to share our knowledge on our websites.

Weekly Reflection: February 6

Reporters: Amanda and Keira

This week we learned about Jackie Robinson. We did a reader's theater where we read about  Jackie Robinson entering the Major Leagues as though we were the real people. He, at first, didn't think he belonged in the Major Leagues. But when they played the Star Spangled Banner at the World Series, he finally felt like her belonged, like the song was playing for him this time.

This month is black history month. We watched a video on some of the famous black people we celebrate like Harriet Tubman and Fredrick Douglas and how they helped more then 1,000 people escape their owners in the Underground Railway. We learned about Martin Luther King Jr and the marches he lead and the speeches he made. We learned that Jackie Robinson made a speech. f
Rosa Parks would not give her seat to a white person so she was arrested. Barack Obama was the first African American to become the President of America.

We saw a play called Ben and Me. It was about a mouse named Amos and Ben Franklin, and how Amos helped Ben with his experiments with electricity. First Amos went out to find food for his family. Next, he went into a house and met Ben Franklin. Then they started singing about how the pen was more mighty than the sword. They made a contract that stated they would do something for someone in exchange for something else. Then Amos gets tricked into helping Ben with an experiment. The experiment was that Ben was testing to see if lighnting was a form of electricity. They made a contract that ended war. The end.