It was a Marvelous Monday

Today we made our own sundials. First we, decorated a paper plate to look like a sun. Then we cut a straw in half and stuck it on in the middle with some clay. Then we took them outside and tried them out. It was so windy that we had to hold them down with rocks. We predict that tomorrow we'll go outside every hour and see where the shadow is and we'll mark it down so that we can use our sundial to tell time.



This morning, we talked about similes. A simile is when you compare how something is similar to another thing. Poets use similes so the reader can picture what they mean in their head. The reader can get more out of the words when a simile is used. We wrote a poem about Aynsley (she was out sick today) filled with similes:

Aynsley
Hair as straight as straw
Hair as blond as spun gold
As quiet as a church mouse
A cough as loud as a barking seal
Eyes as brown as chocolate pudding
Clothes as pink as cotton candy
As sweet as a cherry lollipop
As friendly as a party invitation
Aynsley

We hope you feel better, Aynsley! We missed you today.
We began to write poems with similes about ourselves.

Posted by Room 3

Last Week was Keyboarding Week

Last week was exhausting! Every day, we had approximately two hours of keyboarding. Keyboarding will help us learn to type without looking at the keys. We went to learn keyboarding in the library with Mrs. Graham. We used a book and copied words from the book using the keyboard. We had to use cloth to cover the keyboard so we couldn't look at the keys as we typed. At the end of the week, we used a black cover to hide the keyboard. One thing we learned was the "home row" keys.

Mrs. Graham said that when she was younger it took a whole semester to learn how to type and she had to learn it in high school. We would much rather do it in fourth grade than in high school!

It was hard work, so we're glad it's over! We're glad we learned how to keyboard.

Sincerely,
Room 3

The Stinky Shoe Activity

To hone our powers of observation and description, we did the Stinky Shoe activity last week. Each student chose a shoe at home, made a thorough description of it, then brought it in to school. We piled up the shoes (which, as it turns out, were not so stinky after all) and each student read their description. As a group, we found that the observations that described color and patterns were the most helpful. It was a great activity!

The Longest Thursday of the Year

Today seemed super long. We made a big newspaper structure by taking four sheets of newspaper and rolling them together. Then we made triangles and other shapes out of the tubes of newspaper. After that we put them all together and made this huge structure. We still might add streamers and a roof. People think that it's pretty sturdy and it looks really cool. Everybody made their own tube and then we all got together and made the triangles and walls. People worked together very well. Once we put the roof on, everybody was already starting to play in it. This activity was very fun!
We went out and studied the moon. It was kind of hard to see because it was behind the clouds, but if you looked carefully, you could see it. It was hard to draw your picture, because you couldn't see the moon. But when it appeared as the clouds rolled by, you could get a picture of it. The binoculars were set up and we looked through them. And we are going to have moon homework tonight.

by Hunton

Tuesday, September 8

Today was quite a musical day for Room 3 - we had our first chorus session and our weekly music class. We also completed part 1 of the G-MADE math assessment. In reading, we talked about how to talk about books, and then each shared our current books and thoughts about them. Oh, how I loved hearing what books each student chose! We all got some good ideas for books to read in the future. Science found us continuing to practice being excellent observers, and we ventured outside (who could resist on such a gorgeous day) to find leaves to scientifically observe. Our week is off to a great start!

posted by Miss O'Reilly

More From our First Week Together

Science

Today we did some observations in science. We worked in the school garden and drew pictures and wrote about plants. Scientific observations are hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and feeling. We did it to learn about flowers and pumpkins and to practice being scientific. It was a good idea to do it. We had fun learning about making observations.

by Shannon and Ava

The First Day of School

Today was the first day of school. We had a first day of school assembly. There was a slide show that showed pictures of the new teachers. Mrs. McAdams read a book called The Retired Kid. Some fifth graders went over our Core Values.

We had our first fourth grade music class. Mrs. Burkush is our music teacher this year.

We ate lunch.

The class did a fun project. It was a scavenger hunt. We tried to find things around the classroom. It helped us familiarize ourselves with our new room.

We had an awesome first day!

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