What's Happening in 4th grade.

 June

Have a safe and wonderful vacation!   

I can't believe this school year is almost over.  It has gone by so fast.  A special thank you for your help and support this year.

Tuesday June 10th we will walk to the Nott House.  

Thursday is field day. 

May 

Check out the new Movie slide shows I have created.  Scroll down and enjoy! 

Ask your child about their Heartwood art experience!    

We had an exciting time when Michael Wingfield worked with us the last week of April through May 2nd!  For our first lesson we learned the names of his drums and other instruments.  We learned some technique on how to hit the drum to produce a couple of different sounds.  As the week progressed, we learned the names of some African rhythms and how to do them.  On Friday, we enjoyed performing for the school what we learned! 

                       Field Trips

We will be walking to the Nott House on June 10th.  We will leave  at 8:20.

April    

We have started "walking" around Maine by using our pedometer totals of steps we converted  to miles with the help from Carol Cook.  We are displaying our walk on the Maine map in the class room.  We are using the map scale and our math skills to figure out the mileage from place to place and total distances.  We have done research on some famous Maine people at Graves Library and based our walk on where they lived or are living.  We are also going to places on the map that we have learned about through books we have read that mentioned these places.  For example, Mt. Kathadin, from Lost on a Mountain in Maine.

Thank you for your help with the, "fill the bus project." 

March 

MEA Testing is over!  I believe you will received the results in August. 

 On Tuesday, March 18th we went to the play called, "Freedom Train" at the Merrill Auditorium.  Thank you KCPTA for paying for the bus.  It really reinforced what we all have been learnng about.

On February 5th, we went to Sea Road school to see Stan Davis.  He is the person we have modeled our anti bulling program after.  It was a great program! Ask your child about his visit.

1/18/08 

We have been learning about Dr. Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Jim Crow Laws, and other things about Civil Rights and the movement.  I hope when we are enjoying the day off on Monday, we will think about how far we have come and all the things we can do to continue to make things better with others close to us as well as in the world.

  Ask your child about the presentation they saw  on Friday morning, January 18th at Sea Road School.

                     On Going Updates      

READING:We are reading the book, Castle in the Attic.  As we read and enjoy the book, we will work on using a variety of comprehension strategies and skills.  One strategy is to relate things in the book to personal past experiences or schema.  Other strategies we will use will be context clues, predicting, inferring, decoding, and the use of visualization. 

MATH:

At this time we are working  on percent, decimals, fractions, area, perimeter, division, and multiplication.  We are practicing new algorithms.  We are also learning about decimals and reviewing  addition and subtraction algorithms.  We have learned 3 ways to add.  They are Traditional, Partial-Sums, and Column Addition.  We have also learned two ways to subtract.  They are Trade First (Traditional) and Partial-Difference Subtraction.  My goal is for your child to use the algorithm that works for them.  We are periodically reviewing geometry and place value.    

  Please learn those multiplication facts!  

Also, you need to memorize the places and their values so you will know how to read any number!

SCIENCE: We are learning about Matter, Watery Earth

SOCIAL STUDIES:Immigration, Maine studies as well as map skills. 

In the computer lab with the help from Mrs. Blokland, we have  finished our Power Point incorporating what we have been learning about Maine! 

                                 Enjoy the slide shows!

Enjoy the new Drumming with Michael Wingfield slide show along with Willowbrook, back in time 1800s, Spanish with Katey our Senior High school student and Pedometers in Maine, using our accumulated steps we earned from every day walking that we transferred the mileage as we charted on the map places we studied and where famous people of Maine. lived.  I hope you enjoy them!

http://staff.msad71.net/kpt_lab/Miller/Willowbrook%20movie.wmv

 http://staff.msad71.net/kpt_lab/Miller/Pedometers%20and%20Maine.wmv

http://staff.msad71.net/kpt_lab/Miller/Spanish_Senorita_Katey_Anderson/default.htm

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Thanks to Mrs. Blokland, please see my 4th grade slide shows!

ENJOY! 

Follow the pictures as the students learn about different aspects of the ecosystem.  They begin learning about producers and the four types of consumers while putting together a chart.  Then using their knowledge of producers and consumers  they easily create food chains.  To show how a food chain is linked to many chains, all fourth graders worked together to form a humongous food web.  A big part of the ECOSYSTEM!  Double click and enjoy!

  Our field trip to Laudholm Farm Slide Show

I hope you enjoy watching the excitement in all the students as they made connections to their environment after studying the Ecosystem for the last six weeks.  

A special thank you  to Mrs. Haberern for coming into the classroom and doing three wonderful lessons before going to Laudholm.  Another big thank you to Mrs. Haberern and all the other  knowledgeable docents/guides at Laudholm Farm!   Enjoy the slide show!

http://staff.msad71.net/kpt_lab/Laudholm_Farm/default.htm 

       Fire Safety/Smoke House

http://staff.msad71.net/kpt_lab/Smoke_House07/default.htm 

      Check out Smoke House Part 2

http://staff.msad71.net/kpt_lab/Smokehouse_07/default.htm

    Reading Buddies with Ms. Tushin's Class

We are buddies with Ms. Tushin's class.  We meet on Friday afternoons and do activities together like read and write.  Here is the first slide of the year.  Part of the time we read together.  The last part we wrote fun mini Halloween poems and sang them. 

                                               http://staff.msad71.net/kpt_lab/ReadingBuddies/default.htm

 Mrs. Hardy's Blueberry Lesson

To Kick off our Maine unit, Mrs. Hardy came in and did a fantastic presentation on one of Maine's most popular and tasty agricultural resources.  What a treat it was!  Enjoy the show!

http://staff.msad71.net/kpt_lab/Maine_Blueberry_Lesson/default.htm 

A slide show of our fall nature ecosystem walk with Ms. Tushin's first grade class. 

 http://staff.msad71.net/kpt_lab/FallNatureEcosystemWalk/default.htm

   Guest Speaker Mrs. Manning

Mrs. Manning's presentation of the digestive system was easy to swallow.  It was filled with a variety of twists and turns and ended well.   Please enjoy the slide show.

Recycling At Consolidated School
with Recycle Week 2007 our Slideshow Link! 

                                 New 

Field trip to Victoria Mansion & Henry Wadsworth Longfellow House and museum

The Fourth Grade and Mr. Chapman's class  learned so much from our visit to the Victoria Mansion and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow House and Museum. It was eye opening to compare life today with long ago as well as learning about Henry Wadsworth and his whole extended family. These pictures are from the activity we did at the Victoria Mansion.

http://staff.msad71.net/kpt_lab/Miller/Victoria_Mansion/default.htm

Comprehension

Comprehension or understanding is the key to  life!  There are many strategies we use and don't even realize we are using them.  Whether you are reading actual words, seeing pictures, or actually seeing  things that are going on around you, your brain does so many things to help you comprehend and make sense.  Some of the strategies are your past knowledge or experience we call Schema.  We predict and infer.  We summarize and synthesize.  We decode letters and sounds and so much more.  This activity incorporated many of those strategies to put the book into an order that made sense and told a story.   Check out how everyone worked as a team and used their comprehension strategies!

http://staff.msad71.net/kpt_lab/Miller/Comprehension/default.htm

 Matter

The new science unit is off to a fun start as we experience matter in different ways.  Can you identify the solids, liquids, and gases as well as their properties? 

http://staff.msad71.net/kpt_lab/Miller/Matter/default.htm 

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