Christmas puppets

 For the past week, my students have been learning about Christmas in a different country.  Each group had to read about their country and then write a puppet show depicting Christmas events in their country.  Yesterday, they got to perform their shows in front of their classmates.  The kids did a great job of taking informational text and turning it into a puppet show for all of us to enjoy!

Science Lab

4A is busy preparing for the state science assessment.  We have been learning about matter, mass, volume, and density.  The students have completed several labs to help them understand these concepts.  For one of the labs, the students poured water, syrup and vegetable oil in a cup and observed the liquids.  Then they dropped in a ball of clay, a raisin, a piece of foil, and a piece of celery and observed which ones floated and sunk. We are all looking forward to the next hands-on science lab.  

 

Ice cream party!

Last Friday, my math class celebrated our multiplication and division facts with an ice cream banana split party.  The students had to earn toppings by finishing timed tests in both multiplication and division for each number 1-12.  The students who got through the division 12's, earned a $2 coupon to Sonic and a candy cane filled with candy. 

Cheering for Statistics!

In Math, fourth graders are cheering about statistics.  For the state assessments, the students need to know how to find the maximum, minimum, mode, range, mean and median of a set of numbers.  To help the students remember what each word means, they are learning six cheers. Ask a 4^th grader to give you a cheer for statistics!  

Maximum-The HIGH, HIGH, HIGHEST number

Minimum-The LOW, LOW, LOWEST number

Mode-The one you find the most

Range-You take the HIGH, HIGH, HIGHEST number and subtract the LOW, LOW, LOWEST number

Mean-Add to find the sum, count those numbers, divide

Median-The one in the middle –XXXXXX-BOOM!

 

We have been reading the book Beezus and Ramona during reading groups.  In chapter 2 Beezus attends art class and Ramona disrupts the class.  Beezus becomes even more upset when she believes that Ramona has an imagination and she doesn't.  The chapter ends with the art teacher putting Beezus' picture in the middle of the display which means Beezus' picture was one of the best.  Last week, I gave my students the same instructions that Beezus' art teacher gave them which was to create an imaginary animal.  Then some volunteers judged the pictures and I hung them in the hallway just like the art teacher in the book. 

Marshall Elementary 2012 National Blue Ribbon Award!!!!

Halloween 2012

The Wizard of Oz

Parts of a flower

In Science we have switched from butterflies to learning about plants.  One of our exciting plant labs allows the students to dissect a flower.  The students love to take apart the flower and examine each part.

Pupa

We have already released 2 adult monarch butterflies and this is a picture of our last pupa.

Subjects and Predicates

We have been studying subjects and predicates in English this week.  Today we wrote separate subjects and predicates to make silly sentences when combined.  Here are a few of our silly sentences.

The football ran me over.

The wild beast was looking for milkweed. (reference to our butterfly project :))

My cat acts like a dog.

Mrs. Westerman was an awesome dancer and singer.

As you can imagine, we had lots of laughter while reading the sentences!!!

Blue Ribbon Award

Marshall Elementary wins national Blue Ribbon Award!!!!

Kansas Dept. of Education 2012 Blue Ribbon Winners

Baby Larvae!!!!

Three of our monarch eggs have hatched!!

Some of our bigger larvae (caterpillars).

Butterflies!!!

We have additions to our classroom.  Our classroom has added 3 monarch eggs and 8 larvae (caterpillars) to our room.  It will be so much fun to watch them grow and change!!!

Welcome to 4A

Welcome to Mrs. Westerman's classroom blog.  This is my first attempt at blogging.  :)