Sing Across America

What a talented group of students. This class did a fabulous job on Thursday evening. They have worked really hard all year and were so excited to share their music selections with you. Without a doubt, their efforts paid off. Fifty-nifty is a popular tune and was voted as their favorite. It's one they'll remember forever. Thank you for attending the show!

Math Update

We are studying about the metric measurement system in Math.  During this unit, students will become familiar with metric units of length or distance, capacity, mass, and temperature, as well as the size of each when compared to each other.

One meter is about the distance an adult man can reach, or a little longer than a yard.

One liter is about two large glasses of liquid, or a little more than a quart.

One gram is about the mass of a paper clip or a single peanut.  One kilogram is a little more than 2 pounds.

Metric temperature is measured in Celsius degrees.  Water freezes at 0 degrees and boils at 100 degrees.

Students will discover that the metric system is based on multiples of 10.  Prefixes in the names of metric measurements tell the size of a measure compared to the size of the base unit. 

The most commonly used length units are kilometer, meter, centimeter, and millimeter.

The most commonly used capacity units are liter and milliliter.

The most commonly used units of mass are the gram, kilogram, and milligram

And the Winner Is.......

Maud Hart 2011 Winner! Just before summer begins, thirteen year old Ali finds an old photograph. She recognizes the two children. One's her mother, the other her aunt Dulcie...but who is the third person, the one who's been torn out of the picture? Ali will have two months to figure out, since she's spending the summer with her aunt and her cousin in the same house her mom and aunt used to visit when they were kids.

Then Ali meets Sissy. Sissy is mean, spiteful, and determined to ruin Ali's summer. Sissy also has a secret. Could it have something to do with old photo? Ali is dying to find out. Though, if she's not careful, that's exactly what might happen to her- die, that is.

Second Place: Found by: Haddix

Third Place: The Lemonade War by: Jacqueline Davies

Congrats to all of the Maud Hart participants. Reading and discussing the books was a lot of fun this year. If you haven't read these...I highly recommend adding them to your summer reading list!

Happy Easter

Mrs. Houghton's class wishes everyone

a "sweet" and safe holiday weekend!

Polar Bear Crossing

We would like to congratulate Greta this week...she earned her 300th AR point and now has a stuffed polar bear! She is a reading superstar, and we are all very proud of her!

Miss Becky

Miss Becky, a junior from SCSU, has spent several afternoons working in our classroom. She is an ED220 student from the college with a major in Science. She came in to see if teaching would be an avenue she'd like to head down. Becky worked one on one with students, in small groups, and led a variety of classroom activities to see if this would be something she could see herself pursuing. We really enjoyed her help and wish her the best of luck!

Lego Land

The students have been having so much fun learning about Simple Machines in Science. They are using Legos to build various models. The "Six Simple Machines" are being used in their designs. It is a creative way for them to see how the machines operate and give them a deeper understanding of how work is done. There are some tricky replicas of "real life" machines that are constructed during their science sessions. Building the turnstile, conveyor belt, and car are always highlights.

Attention to detail is very important in this unit. By the end, they really become familiar with the pieces and how things operate when pieced together.

Junior Achievement

Ms. Wendy, a local businesswoman, came into our classroom to teach our fourth graders about the economic regions in the United States. They examined natural, human, and capital resources available in different regions. These resources are an essential part of producing and selling products. The location of a business can often determine the success of a business. All of the them worked on their own business plans. They selected a product they thought they would like to sell, along with the region that would provide the resources to make their product(s), and identified if their region had the resources it needed to make their companies prosper. Determining how resources relate to their business' income and expenses was the next step. They completed calculations to demonstrate how a company determines its profit or loss. A five-step, decision making process was taught and used to help them solve simple business problems.We learned a lot and thank Wendy for taking time out of her busy schedule to teach us about how our economy works. Look out world...we saw a lot of interested and excited entrepreneurs in the group!

Tuck Everlasting

Time drags by for Winnie Foster, an eleven-year-old girl who lives in a house bordering the woods owned by her family. Winnie spends her summer days under the watchful eye of her grandmother. Most of the time it's too hot to be out in the sun, and when Winnie does actually venture outside, she never goes beyond the fence of the yard. But one morning she sneaks away into the woods and there she sees a young man drinking from a mysterious spring of water he uncovers at the base of tree. The young man, Jesse Tuck, discovers Winnie watching him. So he kidnaps her. Actually, the entire Tuck family — Mae and Pa and Jesse's brother Miles — kidnap Winnie. They have to keep the spring that Winnie has seen a secret, because the strange water there makes anyone who drinks from it live forever. Long ago the Tucks unknowingly drank from the spring, and now the four of them are over 100 years old. They have come to learn that immortality is not a blessing but a curse. Winnie is won over by the kind family. But she's not the only one who knows their secret. A man wanting to buy the well and make it famous has been watching the Tucks all along, and the only way to stop him is to take away the life he so wants to make last forever. Soon, Winnie must help her new friends escape from the police; she must break every rule that she knows, to insure that the most important rule in life — death — is not broken by everyone else. Natalie Babbit's celebrated story is both magical in its fantasy and powerful in its themes of time and life. Her vivid writing makes the landscape of the woods and countryside as easy to imagine as the characters who inhabit it. History passes the Tuck family by — they are doomed to live forever. But though they live outside the rules of time, they never live beyond the rules of human compassion and feeling.

The students are really enjoying this fantasy story. With this novel we will be learning about figurative language, recalling details, cause and effect, main idea, compare and contrast, characterization, and building vocabulary. Each student will select a final project based on this book as well as take a comprehension test.

Baseball Fever

Go Twins!

We are ready for a winning season!

Bike Safety 101

Officer Wittson came to speak to all students about bike safety on Friday. He reviewed the basic rules for safe riding as well as some personal stories. The students participated in several demonstrations and went over how to signal when turning. He stressed the importance of wearing a helmet each time you ride. Sartell police staff will be rewarding riders this summer with ice cream certificates...so follow the rules!

Math Update

This week the students learned how to recognize and name solid figures such as a cube, sphere, cylinder, prism, pyramid, and cone and how to describe their characteristics.  We learned how to count a figures faces, edges, and vertices.

In the next unit, your child will be introduced to decimal numbers.  Students will explore decimal numbers by using bars, they will relate decimals to fractions, and will learn how to combine whole numbers with decimals.  Students will be rounding decimals, for example, 0.87 rounded to the nearest tenth is 0.9.  Later we will apply our understanding of decimals to compare them, add them, and subtract them. 

This week our students will receive a practice MCA packet to complete at home.  We went over Practice A and Practice B in class, and they will complete Practice C independently to help them prepare for the state MCA Math test on April 20-21.

Woodwinds

Three members from the St. Cloud Symphony Orchestra came to play for our fourth graders on Wednesday. The students have been learning about each of the different instrument families in music class, so being able to hear this group "live" was extra special. The performers shared facts about their instruments and how long they've been playing. They were very entertaining!