Tales Of A 4-5 Something

In class we are doing something called Secret Laurel. Secret Laurel is like Secret Santa except we give each other books from the classroom library, not for keeps, instead of presents. The reason we call it Secret Laurel is because at our school librarian’s name is Laurel. We asked our classmates what kinds of books they liked and we talked with Tim about books that would be good. We did a lot of investigating and thought about what our classmates would like. We are super excited because today (December 20, 2019) we are going to give and receive our books! Grace and Scarlett 

4-5 had a chorus concert on December 18, 2019. It was a group of 57 students singing together. The songs were Tongo, Little Birch Tree, Path To The Moon, and The Mountains are Calling Me. Before the show we saw the other groups practice at the dress rehearsal. There was also a jazz band, middle school chorus, and chamber orchestra. The 4-5 chorus got to perform for them too. We had a lot of fun singing songs we practiced in chorus class! Lucy-Ellen, HJ, and Paloma

In class we are doing folktales in writing workshop. There are many folktales including how berries got edible, how gold got golden and how the world got color and many more stories. All these folktales explain the unexplainable and we are studying folktales because we are studying People's Movement West. Lots of people have folktales in their culture and we heard some from Paul Goble who wrote down folktales from Indigenous People. Here are some links: Rafe's and Dylan's We also made some art like Paul Goble did in his books. Here's some pictures of art work.     by Dylan and Rafe

On November 13th it was Prairie Day. Prairie Day is a day where it is close to wrapping up the study of the Westward Movement. We had a lot of fun activities. There were four groups. One group went to Tims’ Homestation, one to Vanessas’ Homestation, one to Nancys’ Homstation, and one to Kai's Homestation and there was a place where you could get a quick snack. The students brought baked goods and treats for the 4-5 Prairie Day. In Tims’ Homestation, we learned about how kids in the eighteen-hundreds were entertained. They played dominoes where you match two dominoes together or you can knock them down and there were marbles. Where you get a mat and try to hit one marble with another marble. In Nancy’s homestation we made cornhusk dolls. Cornhusk dolls are dolls that are made out of the husk that goes around the corn. In Kai’s homestation you could dress up like people in the 1840’s. They even had bandanas. In Vanessa’s homestation we made miniatures like mini butter churners and mi...

Did you know that Keane makes fingerboards? This is how he makes the fingerboards. He uses thin pieces of wood called veneer and he puts 4 sheets together. He puts them in a mold with vices then he leaves them in the mold overnight. Later, he sands them into the shape of a skateboard shape and puts a graphic on the bottom of the board with sharpie. He then puts sand paper on the top and drills holes then he put on a trucks with tiny bolts and the fingerboard is finished. He has sold them at craft fairs and has fun making them and playing with them . If you want to buy one Keane's fingerboards go to Mocean Skate Shop on Milk Street. This is his first fingerboard  Two of the tools he uses: A drill bit and a fingerboard tool By Keane & harper

Today we are going to be decorating gingerbread cookies with our kindergarten and first grade buddies. We are looking forward to spending time with them. All of the grades in the Lower School have buddies. The early childhood group has older second and third grade buddies and the kindergarten and first grade group has fourth and fifth grade buddies. We have fun reading, going on field trips, making art, and even singing songs.  Emile, JJ, and Tobey.

We like the sensory walk in 4-5! It is fun to have it in the morning. We can use it to wake up our brain whenever we need it. My favorite part is the inch worm walk.

In electricity club, we made a power house from a kit. The power house was made of styrofoam to keep in heat and one time it got up to 29 degrees celsius inside. We used solar power and a blow dryer to make a mini-windmill on the house spin. There were three solar panels and if you put the house in the sun it would spin. When we used the blow dryer, the windmill spun fast enough to generate enough electricity to light up a small light bulb. Electricity club was really fun and we would want to do it again! By Alex and Naomi

This weekend the Nutcracker took place a Merrill Auditorium and Grace was in it! She was on stage with lots of other dancers from all over. She told us the ballet is about a girl who goes on an adventure after her godfather casts a spell on her house. The Nutcracker, mice, candy, and everything come alive. She made a video of things that go on behind the scenes which we will show here . Maybe you will get to see the show?  Grace and Rafe  She also has a poster

In Kai's class we learned about animals and the habitats they live in. We are studying people moving west and the animals are what people would see when they moved west. Some people learned about Raccoons, wolves, and prairie dogs. We made board games to help us learn about animals we didn't study. The fun part was putting facts on the board. We hope you get to play our games.

In units we are learning about the westward movement of people and the Oregon Trail. We get to go to four classes. One is about life on a wagon, another is about the animals in the west, another is about the indigenous people who lost their land, and another is about the states and the trail.  After learning about the trail and the states we get to recreate it in minecraft. There were 4 groups for the project, fact finders, trail blazers, manmade landmarks and natural landmarks. The fact finders found facts about the states and landmarks. The trail blazers made the path. The 2 landmark teams made natural and man made landmarks along the trail. We will share some pictures and videos when we get done with our work. We are having fun! By Tobey and Paloma

We like to build things in school and at home. Emile built a candy dispenser using legos. He made a video about how he did and shared it with us. We thought it was great! Here is the video and we think you should watch it! https://drive.google.com/file/d/14xCHmA77f8qUngbAinCGr_A2-IqPu9a4/view?usp=sharing

On October 16 we went to Zu bakery. We started by dividing into two groups and the first group was sent into the bakery. The first thing we learned about was called bread geography. Barak, the baker, said that his bread only had three ingredients. The water had traveled roughly five miles to his bakery. Next was the wheat which had traveled roughly 300 miles and was from Aroostook County and finally, the salt traveled from Ireland and France, a journey of roughly three thousand miles. Next we charted something called the wheat geography which was the parts of a wheat berry. He showed us a diagram of the parts of a wheat berry. In a wheat berry there are three parts: the endosperm, the bran, and the germ. Each of them do their own thing to help the berries grow and thrive. We saw his brick oven, talked about how he makes the bread, and even got to taste some! When we were getting on the bus he handed us each a stick of the chocolate that he uses to make chocolate croissants. It was so ...

We made arcade like games from scratch for Family Fun Day! Keane, JJ, and Tobey made a mini basketball game from cans and cardboard. Grace and Scarlett made a game where you fly your airplane into Jack-O-Lantern Airport. It is a game where you try to get a paper airplane into a box. It was fun to think about how to make games for other people and imagine what they would like. It was a fun day and we want to do it again.  Grace and Keane In the fall we had a fall party for Halloween. This year we made games. Some of the games were Cup Flip by Lucy-Ellen and Hailey. There was a game called the String Thing by Rafe, Asahel, and Dylan. There was a game called ring toss by Daphne, Ami and Paloma. There was even a face body board where you could put your face into a cutout and get your picture taken. It was pretty awesome. There was a cup toss by Emile, Tobey, and Keane where you throw the ball into a can and earn points. We thiught it was a lot of fun. Lucy Ellen and Asa...

Since we started school we have been learning about Local Foods. Today, we did a kahoot on local foods. Kahoot is a trivia game where the teachers make questions on a website and we use our iPads to answer. So it is basically a test but a lot more fun. We wanted to see what we remembered from our learning. We talked about the questions and remembered the fun we had in class. Each homestation in 4-5 goes to a class we call units. One of the units classes focused on history, the next focuses on food miles. Then, we went to a class that focused on soil and worms. And finally, we went to a class that focused on herbs and we made smelling jars! A lot of us liked making smelling jars even though it was so so so strong. Want to try? Here are two questions. An Atlatl is: an edible berry the dried skin of a deer a primitive weapon used for hunting the process of grinding food into flour How can you tell if an earthworm is an adult? it has a clitellum it has a full time job...

In 4-5 we get assigned buddies for the year who are in K-1 or EC. In Kai’s class we are partnered with Gretchen's k-1 class. For the first buddies we went to the Piney woods, played  and made alliterations for the first letter of our name. In our last buddies meet up we were working on making/tweaking inventions like a banana, a plane, random buttons, a TV, and a pencil. Some of the tweaks were scents, color, pools, making things appear, and emergency do NOT press buttons.   * challenge *   Can you make a four letter sentence that starts with the first letter of your name? * challenge * can you make a cooler version of a clothing piece? Thank you for reading!!!!!      Livy O.   Gloria F.

The whole Lower School and all of Waynflete is reading The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer. The teachers read it over the summer. It is about a boy who lives in Malawi in Africa. He grows Maize (which is corn) to feed his family. One year, when he was thirteen, there was a big flood. The fertilizer prices were higher and they couldn’t buy it. The flood washed away all the soil. The plants that survived did not survive for long and they had a drought. His family was starving and he had to drop out of school. William makes a windmill to bring electricity to his family and his neighborhood. We made windsocks at convocation connected to the book. It’s a really good story and it is non-fiction.                                  AK

                                                By Ethan In Electricity Club we have been using snap circuits. I bet most people have had experience with them. If you don’t know what they are, they are pretty much just metal wires and electrical boxes like a motor or a light.  We made the first five projects. I highly recommend the electricity club because it is very fun. I don’t know if you will like it, but I do! So why don’t you give it a try! This is Ethan reporting live from Kai’s homestation. Questions or Comments? Email kai at kbicknell@waynflete.org

Last Wednesday Josh, who owns Heritage Seaweed a seaweed shop in Portland, came in and talked about seaweed. We learned that there are many different types of seaweed and it has many different flavors. He told us how good seaweed is for our body and how growing it does not hurt the environment because it doesn't need fertilizer or freshwater to grow. He also makes many different types of snacks including bars and tea that we got to try. Fun fact, if you let seaweed rot it will release a gas that is bad for your lungs. Now we hope you will try seaweed and maybe like it. Rafe and JJ

We went to the Common Ground Country Fair. It was fantastically fun! :) We saw animals, played games and saw/ate good local food and vegetables. We also saw cool stuff like artwork and pet animals. There were a lot of other schools there and the place was busy. We hope to go back next year! Dylan and Tobey

Today we did counting collections which is when you take many types of things with many different colors and textures and count them.  Then we wrote down what we thought the answer was and we drew the picture of how we got the answer. Some people decided to count by threes, some by eights and then they added, multiplied, or subtracted to get their final answer.  For example, some of us got together and made a stack of cubes that had 2,480 cubes in it. Some other people even used arrays. We did reflections when we finished and we wrote an explanation of what we drew. We also reflected on how much we liked the project. There was also a second sheet that listed some other ways to think about counting and the equation that consisted of algebra, the order of operations, and fractions. It was great to see different people strategies for counting quickly and efficiently. We all had a lot of fun! Daphne, Lucy-Ellen, HJ, Ami, Rafe, Scarlett, Emile, Dylan, Paloma, and To...

Today we did a lot of community building games. It was a lot of fun!      

Each year in 4-5 it is a tradition to a do a play at the end of the year. This year we did the Suprising Story of the Three Little Pigs.   It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed acting and performing for the school and our families. The play had a  lot of humor. One time, Harper who was a stagehand came on and said, "let me give you a hand." He started clapping instead of helping with the bridge for the Billy Goats. We also had real hay which came from a real farm where Lucy Ellen raises cows. We practiced for many weeks and it was fun. We also practiced outside so that our voices could get very big. We hope you liked the show. Ami, Daphne, Rafe, and Harper.

Every year 4-5 goes on a Mystery Trip. The teachers don't give us hints and usually tells us wacky stories. Like this year they said we were going to Spain and the Museum of Wooden Things. We don't know where we're going until we get there. We liked what we did! We went on a trolley ride around Portland and then went to Fort Williams Park. We were there for 3  hours. We got to go in the old forts, play in the grass and on the rocks with our teachers, and watch the waves. Some of the rocks were very slippery some people slipped into the water. The next day we went in a buddy trip back to Fort Williams but this time we were in the children's garden and the pond was full of water. They were both REALLY FUN!! Lucy-Ellen