Tales Of A 4-5 Something

Today some of us picked our Genius Hour ideas. This Genius Hour is different because we can pick anything to learn about. The last one we had to stick with electricity and the one before that we had to do the marsh. We did a lot of brainstorming at school and at home. Here are some of our ideas. What is code and how do you write code? I want to learn how to whittle. How does metal form? I want to learn about Mt. Everest. Who was the first ballet dancer?   How does a 3D printer work? I want to make my own chocolate bar and make candy company. I want to make an old fashioned lacrosse stick. How does a snowmobile work? What is the story behind Legos? How does a lock work and how can you pick them? I want to learn more about Simon Dumont. How are candles made? What can we do to save the environment? How are skis made? What is the history of clowns? I want to make a pinhole camera. Why don't you e...

All of us in 4-5 are doing our I.P.’s. IP stands for Independent Project. Tobias is doing Biofuels, Charlie D is doing Tom Brady, Grace is doing John Muir, Nathan is doing Bald Eagles, Henry H is doing China, and Maeve is doing Misty Copeland. Each student picks a topic that is connected to what we learned this year. A fun fact about Biofuels is that ONE average American in ONE day throws away about 4.4 POUNDS of garbage! We don't do that much at school because we recycle and compost. A fun fact about Tom Brady is he had a chance to play in the MLB. Our IPs started a long time ago when we brainstormed ideas, picked books, took notes, and made outlines. Now we are sharing our reports and visual aids in front of an audience. When we are done presenting we fill out a reflection. Tobias ans Charlie D.

Right now we are doing pickleball in P.E. with Guy and Elicia. Pickleball is a mixture between tennis, ping pong and badminton. The ball in pickleball is basicly a wiffleball. We started out learning ball control and then slowly moved to games. We love pickleball and wish we could play it every day in P.E. This is an example of pickleball without a net .  

We are working on a electricity genius hour. In the beginning of the year we had a Genius Hour based on The Salt Marsh . Genius Hour is where each person chooses what a question they want to answer. This time it was based on electricity. We studied Electricity with Tim and Nancy. Two of the things we learned was that there are two types of electricity: Static and Dynamic. Dynamic is the flow of electrons, Static is electrons jumping all over the place. Here are some of our projects: JD is making a House Powered by Redstone in Minecraft. CI and HM is Breaking and Re-Making a MacBook (it wasn’t working to start out). HH and TP are Working with the Makey-Makey kit. Some other examples are Making a House out of Cardboard with working lights, Posters on Protons, Neutrons and The Human Body, a motorized plane, research on gold. Cole and Jaden Genius Hour is a time of the year when everyone picks an individual project. You don't have to be alone. You can work with a pa...

In our class we are doing something called literature. Literature is when we get divided up into groups and then read a book that we choose. Our teacher chooses about 4 books and we get to choose one of them that we want to read. The people that choose the same book are in a group. This time, when we finished with the book, we made an iMovie. An iMovie is an app that you can make your own little movies that are about 2 minutes. Iris read True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. Its very mysterious and there are a lot of murders. There’s a mean captain and a cool girl who is very adventurous. Seth and Tenny read a book called The One and Only Ivan. That book is about a gorilla named Ivan. He lives in a mall and has a friend named Stella. Stella is very sick and in the middle of the story she dies. The book is about Ivan’s life. The other book that was read in our class was called A Single Shard. It is about an orphan boy in Korea (a long time ago) who wants to learn to make pottery. He b...

Last week all the fifth graders performed the Cha Cha at Pachanga. After we performed the Cha Cha we danced with the rest of the Lower School to the Casper Slide. Parents were even dancing! We have been working on the Cha Cha for about 5 weeks. It was very fun to learn with Elicia and Patty who was a special dance teacher. The dance goes Step Step Cha Cha Cha, Step Step Cha Cha Cha. Here is a  video of our dance . Henry H

Today Linda announced that we have reached our goal of collecting more than 500 dollars! We raised 584 dollars. We recently went to wayside to see what they do there. We learned that they have a huge food selection and that they really want to help the hungry. They have all kinds of food in their huge warehouse. They also have a rainy day supply of food so if a charity is low on food they can come and pick it up. Everyone in 4-5 is very happy of all the money we raised. Henry H

On Tuesday at the first recess the EC-ers were building a river. They were digging little trails so the water could move from the natural play space, down the hill, and into the lower playground. It was really fun. The EC-ers were really cute and they did most of the work. We noticed that the Ec-ers had more creative minds. We would not have thought to build the river and it was so much fun! Nathan