The 4S Newsletter:  It’s All About the…

Cheese!!!!

 Class Play: Lights, Camera, Action! Okay. Now we have an audience. Hurry! Run back stage before they see us. Cut. We’re acting our class play here and you’re invited, but it seems like you’re already here because we do have an audience right now! I guess the date has been set for 2:00 on May 31st. So, come on, everyone, and let’s get performing. Tortoise, Donkey, Farmer, Teller 1, I Don’t Know, Cat, Decipher, Dog, Rooster, Fox, Bear, Teller 4, Teller 6; are you all in your places? Now, audience, are you ready? Our plays are folk tales from all around the world! Don’t miss Yoo Bin, the Rooster, and for sure, don’t miss the play. Just remember: May 31st, 2:00, Room 530. Be There!

by Juliana 

          Math/Multi digit Multiplication: Do you know how to do multi digit multiplication with both partials and compact methods? Can you check your answer with estimation?

          You must know single digit multiplication. We learned multi digit compact and partials multiplication. We had a lot of practice and most people got it. Ms. Sutherland worked with the kids who were having difficulty doing multi digit partials or compact. I’ll give you an example. Try this. 63 X 89 (partials method): First, do 3 x 9 which is 27 and record it underneath the solution line. Then do 9 by 60 which is 540 and record it below 27. Then do 80 x 3 which is 240 and record it below 540. At last do 60 x 80 which is 4800 and record it below 240. Add all the numbers. To check your answers, you should estimate by using rounded numbers to see that your answer makes sense. I rounded 63 to 60 and then rounded 89 to 90 and multiplied which was 5400. That is close to 5607 so my answer makes sense.

          Now I’ll tell you how to multiply with the compact method which is more efficient than partials. I found multi digit compact very easy. This is an example: 26 X 82. First you do 6 X 2, and write the 2 and carry the 1. Then we do 2 X 2, add the one you carried, and record the five in the tens place. Now you have 52 recorded. Below 52, we write a 0 because we are multiplying (the 8) which is really an 80. Anytime you multiply numbers with 0’s your answer should have that many zeros after it. Now we multiply as normally with compact as though the 80 is an 8. 8 X 6 is 48 so we write the 8 and carry the 4. Then do 8 X 2, add the 4, and write 20. Finally add all the numbers together. Check your answer with partials.

          Finally you learned how to do multi digit multiplication. Did you know both ways?

by Hamza

          How-To Books: Hey, do you know how to write a “How-To Book”? We do. We worked so hard on our How-To Books. Ms. Sutherland says that all of the ones she has read are SO GOOD! Now we get to read each others’ stories, and I can’t wait! But we worked, as I said, hard on it. We went through the revision and the editing process many times and typed or wrote final copies (most typed). We needed to have a table of contents, an introduction paragraph, three sections with headings in the middle (at least), and a conclusion paragraph with a glossary or index. Some kids even wrote an “About the Author” section. But now we want YOU to read our fabulous books. Here are some of the people I thought wrote really good books: Raghav on rock climbing, Daniel on swimming, Jackie on riding a bike without training wheels, Isabel on how to make a rubber band ball, and Isabella’s on how to take care of a baby. It was so cute with a picture of her with her new baby sister! Omer wrote how to run fast! I wrote how to do the monkey bars. We also had photographers for our books who took pictures of us. These are just like real books, and for some of us, it was our first published real book.

by Leonie

            In math we learned about measurements.  We learned about meters, millimeters, centimeters, and decimeters.  A centimeter is 10 millimeters, a decimeter is 10 centimeters, and a meter is 10 decimeters.  If you know base-ten shorthand you know a bit represents 1 and a skinny represents 10. We found out that a bit is 1 centimeter long and with that we knew that a skinny must be 1 decimeter.  With that we used skinnies like decimeter sticks and that really helped us in measurements. We measured many things in our classroom like the filing cabinet, the desks, the chalkboard, the floor, the door, the bookshelf. Now I love to measure every thing!

by Brian

          Social Studies Exploration: We have only just started our exploration unit, but next week we go full force! The only thing we have done is this question, and it asks you if you had a chance to live in a space colony, would you do it?  (If somebody paid you a million dollars, would you do it? Or if you were trying to escape persecution, would you do it? To be famous)? We had to really think about it, and about half the class said no and half said yes. The half that said no said that they would miss their families too much since it would take 3 months to receive messages. We are also going to play a game, and it goes like this. There are four teams of explorers (Italian, Spanish, French, and British). The object of the game is to cross the Atlantic Ocean first to get to North America. The way you do this is by doing different activities to move a dot across the ocean on the bulletin board. You really have to work as a team. I wonder what team I’ll be on. I think this is going to be fun.

by Ryan

                   P.E. by Gui McMouse: Huuh! One! Huh! Two! Oh. I’m just doing push ups in P.E.! We started the year with swimming, then jump rope, then Adventure, then hockey, then basketball, and finally back to swimming again. I’m warming up for swimming in Trimester 3.

          “Okay, get in the pool now.” WATCH OUT FOR THE CANNONBALL! SPLASH! Great. Now I’m soaked! Can things get any worse?

          “Okay, now, sharp pencil push-off!” GASP! (Not the sharp pencil push-off again! Hey! Stop poking me!” Okay, rest now; it’s free time!

          Uh-oh. SUPER SOAKERS!!! AHHHHHHHHGGGGHHHHH! PPPPWWWWW! I hate water in my mouth! Gotta’ run! I mean....Swim! Now I can soak you! Ha Ha! Super Sized Super Soakers!?! Let me out of here!

by Gui

          Literature Circle Groups: In Literature Circles we have a choice of which book we want to read together with other students. It is always a hard choice because all the books look good. The books we got to pick from were Tuck Everlasting, Sarah, Plain, and Tall, Missing Gator of Gumbo Limbo, or The Green Book. All these books had to do with the theme of people affecting the environment and the environment affecting the people. I chose Sarah, Plain, and Tall. In my group there was Daniel, Jessica, Tina, and Ingrid. In Tuck Everlasting there is Leonie, Brian, Raghav, Stephanie, and Hamza. In the Green Book there is Isabel, Ryan, and Isabella. Jackie, Juliana, Stephen, Gui, and Sherif are reading the Missing Gator of Gumbo Limbo. We read a chapter, and then we write a summary and a response in our journal. Next we bring our journals to group and share from our journals and talk about the chapter. The summary is the main parts of the book. The response is your text to self and world connections or to movies and the questions you have about what’s happening in the reading. You need to write and talk about what you think and feel about the reading and use the reading strategies we’ve learned in class. I liked my group and book.

by Salaheldin

          Science/Plants and the Bean Sprouters: PEEEE-EEEWWW! These bean sprouters STINK! Just to tell you a bean mini sprouter is beans put in a water container, drained, and with no soil.

          It all started one day when....Ms. Sutherland asked us if seeds can grow in only water, no soil. Most of us said “no’, but a few of us said “yes”. I said no. So we put them in a container filled with water. Next we kept watching then I saw something in our science book that made my eyes just BULGE. It said, HOW can you grow plants without soil?” Then I realized they were growing. But there was one problem it STUNK! Ms. Sutherland gagged and almost threw up when she went to clean them out after the weekend.

by Raghav

          Science/Plants and Lima Bean Experiments: We have been studying plants and have designed our own experiment like, “Will a lima bean plant grow taller with caffeine?” They will feed their plant cocacola. Some kids are feeding their plants chocolate milk. Some are singing songs and playing music to see if their plants grow fast or taller. All the groups have to have an experimental plant and a control plant. The control plant must be given light and water and the perfect conditions for growing, the normal way. And that’s what we’re doing in Science.

P.S. Did you know that any thing that has a seed is a fruit? Cucumbers and tomatoes are fruits too. We searched through many, many fruits and looked at their seeds, dicots or monocots, how many seeds, what color, what size, and organized them by categories as a group. It was fun and delicious!

by Jessica

          Science/Plants: Wisconsin Fast Plants: Have you ever heard of a Wisconsin Fast Plant? I have! In class we have planted and grown Wisconsin Fast Plants, which are special plants which complete their whole life cycle in only six weeks! We are doing this so we can see the complete life cycle of a plant. Mandy and Randy (my two seeds I named) won’t grow at all. I think it’s because when I was watering them, I picked up a seed (they are very small). I just think I picked them up, but I don’t know. Ms. Sutherland says I probably washed the seeds out of the pot or maybe drowned them. Oops. Raghav, Daniel, and Hamza’s plants are the best, I think. Ryan’s is the oldest, Jackie’s and Ingrid’s plant, named Agrogg, is healthy and looking good, Stephen and Sherif’s plant, though, is my favorite. Omer and Yoo Bin have a slanted plant. Dino and Brian have a good healthy plant and so do Stephanie and Isabella. Isabel and Leonie have a long, big plant. This is from what I can see. They are all under constant white light. I think that my plant (and Gui’s) is in the drain actually. OOOPPPPSSS!

by Tina

          Hyper card Studio Projects/Computers: Have you ever heard of hyper studio cards? If you haven’t seen one, come to the computer lab on May 31st!

          In Hyper studio we are making cards of the main elements of culture like: Food, Homes, Clothing, Families, and Traditions and Beliefs. The first step was to make 6 cards. Next, you give each card a different and colorful background.

          After that, you type in your paragraphs and titles. Then you add in some pictures from the Internet of your topic by going to images on the Google site. Finally when everything is set, you add buttons on the first card and VOILA!!!! Finished!

          If you see ours, they are so cool!

by Isabella

          Health Office: How to Know if Your Eye is Good or Not: If you want to know if your eyes are good or not, maybe you can’t see when the teacher writes something on the chalkboard- that means your eyes are bad. When you go to the doctor, you have to do hearing and eye tests. In the eye test you have to guess all the shapes in the microscope thing or guess all the letters far away. Hearing: if you hear a sound in earphone, push the red button. Oh, and eyes are getting bad when you’re in junior high or fourth or fifth grade a lot. The doctor will check your eyes with a flashlight, and the teacher will tell the nurse if you need testing.

by Yoo Bin

          Literature Circle Groups: Do you know what literature circle groups do? My group read a book called The Missing Gator of Gumbo Limbo Hole. We discuss the reading and help each other understand the book better and put all the parts together. We write responses to the chapters. The book is set in Florida in a swamp where Liza K. the main character, who is homeless, lives. Travis is going to find Dajun, the alligator who controls the swamp, and he wants to shoot him. That’s the problem for Liza K. and her friends: Dajun is missing, and they’re trying to save him from Travis. How long can an alligator stay under water? Do you think Dajun will be found and saved? Gui, Sherif, and I read together and the others read together. Then we all get together and talk about the book.

by Stephen

          Writing Sample: There it is. Done. The writing sample happened last week in 4S (and the whole fourth grade).  The prompts that you could write about were how to build anything or to plan your own birthday party. We had 3 days to do it. I wonder how we did.

by Ingrid

          Art: Let’s get started. I want to tell you all about a special class: Art! As you might have seen, we (4S) just got finished with our beautiful Art show. We had weaving bags, masks, and other stuff in our art show. We were the only class to have our bags finished for the art show! Now we are starting on watercolors.

          What are we doing exactly with watercolors? I’m so glad you asked. We draw a picture of a hot air balloon and give it a background. Then we used a technique called “wet-on-wet”. It goes like this?

          1. You take a paintbrush and dip it in water.

          2. Then you wet the area you are going to paint.

          3. Then you get a tiny bit of paint, and put your brush on the wet spot. The paint will spread.

          I remember all this because I did it at home.

by Stephanie

          English as a Second Language class: Do you know what we are doing in E.S.L.? We just did what we call the reading test. What we do in the reading test is we fill in the bubble for the correct answer.

                   We also did a writing test. First, brainstorm then draft 1, then editing for sentence fluency, conventions, ideas, voice, paragraphs, organization, and word choice. And then we write the final draft.

          I almost forgot, but we are working on a story that we need to write in English and in our own language. We write an “About the Author” in English and in our own language. E.S.L. sounds hard, but it’s easy and fun!!!!

by Omer

          Showing and not Telling Writing Practice: Have you ever had someone telling you something like, “Oh, I moved into my new apartment, and it was the worst apartment I have ever seen!” Do you find yourself not even feeling sorry for them? It’s because they told you it was “the worst” but they never “showed you” by giving examples and details of what made it so bad. This is why we are learning how to show and not tell in our writing and how we talk to people. You have to say things like there were spider webs in it, and the sink was broken. There was no cable or air conditioning on a 100 degree day! It was all dusty and moldy in the kitchen. There were cracked windows and a sign in front, which read, “Warning! This building could collapse any minute.” Now can you see why it was the worst apartment to live in? That’s pretty important to be able to do, I think.

          Some students in our class picked from a choice of different telling sentences, and their assignment was to show that sentence. For example, “The substitute teacher was so weird, “ or “The puppy was undisciplined.” Ryan had “I could tell spring was coming.” Hamza had “School lunches are unbelievably bad.” Tina had, “It looked like a haunted house.” Everyone showed in their pieces, and there was no telling.

by Isabel

          Mrs. Frisby and The Rats of NIMH : We just finished reading a really good book by Robert C. O’Brien. We had our own copies of the book, and Ms. Sutherland read it aloud. It’s a book which is harder than a fourth grade book. It is about a mouse named Mrs. Frisby. She is a widow because her husband, Jonathan, was killed while doing work for the rats of NIMH, putting a sleeping drug powder in Dragon’s bowl. Dragon is a cat, a mean cat. Mrs. Frisby has four children, but one of her sons, Timothy, has pneumonia and is very ill. Mrs. Frisby is worried because Moving Day is coming soon, and Timothy will die if he has to go out in the cold. But if they stay, the tractor will plow them over. The plower has very sharp blades. Mrs. Frisby will have to do something to save Timothy from not dying, so she goes to the wise owl who tells her that the rats can help her. I can’t tell you any more. That would be too much. 4S really liked the book and recommend it to everyone, even you, parents. If you want to see what happens, then you should read the book. And there are two sequels written by the author’s daughter, Jane Conley. One more thing don’t watch the movie. It’s very disappointing after the book.

by Jackie

                   Music: La, la, la, la, la, la. Singing is really fun. So is recorder. Every year the elementary school has a concert. Let’s see what the fourth grade concert was like (from back stage)!

          Man! It’s hot up there, and you don’t think people can see you, but they can see everything. So watch out. The songs seem hard. “Ya’azeeza”, “Hush Little Baby”, “Steller Rondo”, “I Don’t Care if the Rain Comes Down”, and then finally “Evening Has Gently Come.” Whew! That was a long time, and that was a lot of songs. Three out of five of these songs have recorders.

          Mrs. Nerenhausen must have done a lot of work to make this possible!

by Daniel