Tales Of A 4-5 Something

Katherine Marsh is an author who came to our school for a book chat to talk about her recent series, The Myth of Monsters. The First book is about a girl named Ava, who is part gorgon (which means she is related to Medusa) and she goes on an adventure to help her friend Fia, who loses her voice. Ava tries to help her with help from her two other friends, Arnold and Layla. Academia del Forte is the school that Ava and her friends go to. It is a prestigious school in Venice, Italy. Katherine talked about how she came to write this book and how hard it is to go through the writing process with all the revisions and meetings.  We also learned a little bit about Katherine Marsh as a person. We learned she has a lot of pets, like a bunny, axolotls, cats, and chickens. We loved Katherine Marsh’s visit. If you would like to learn more about her, click the link above! Jane and Hartley

In 4-5, we are writing food memoirs of our memories of good food. This is connected to our bigger theme of Local Foods! In Writing Workshop, we read a lot of books about memories around food. Then we brainstormed ideas of what our topics could be, and when we had an idea, we jotted it down in our lifebooks. We also wrote on a sea of talk, sharing stories with our voice, to use descriptive words. We want to make Tim’s mouth water. ( Not our fault, he asked us to! ) After we start a draft, we can keep writing in our journals or start using an ipad or computer to type up our drafts. After we typed up our draft, we would send it to Tim. He would edit it and give us feedback on our drafts. (Sylvie had to do that part THREE times!) Tim is always telling us : Show, don’t tell! Slow down the hot spots! Test out new beginnings!” Over and over and over and over…. and over again! So we have to do that very carefully so that he doesn’t tell us again. When we get to a comfortable draft, we can sta...

In science class, we are working on photosynthesis model projects. We could choose to show any plant that were native plants to Maine. That category includes blueberries, wild strawberries, apples, and potato plants. We each have to label our models with the inputs and outputs of photosynthesis. We also had to add a 3D element to our projects. We had a limited supply of mixed media materials. The first step was to design our plan on a packet of paper. The next step was to show our plan to our science teacher, Autumn. Next, we had two options of building. We could build completely in 3D or keep it flat and mount it on the foam board. Then we built our chosen plants on the foam board! We thought that this project was really great! Sincerely, Lizzie and Landon

Clubs are an awesome way to spend a rainy or snowy day inside. Clubs are ideas that kids come up with and we get to choose to join. Our first club sharing had a lot of options ranging from clay/ceramics to stock market. For this round, the clubs are karaoke, cartooning, studio gibly, math and logic, tag, stock market, clay club and the PE Action club. In our opinion, the most interesting clubs are the stock market club and the cartoon/studio gibly club. Still, all are great and we are lucky to have so many choices! Leila and Max

Every year we get to be reading buddies with  the kindergarteners and 1st graders. We really like it and we do a lot more than just reading. In Tim’s homestation we have Megan’s habitat, Nancy is with Stacey, Julia F's homestation is with Jess, and Julia S is matched up with Marjorie. Right now in Buddies we are still getting to know each other. We draw together and play outside. We have buddies every two weeks. Last time we interviewed each other with questions like our favorite colors and foods.  Decker and Gus

 In 4-5 there is a lot of chances for us to share our ideas. Right now, there are multiple petitions asking for something to change. There are petitions from having mac and cheese on the cafe menu to adding a recycling bin for the playground. People have been working very hard. For example, people have been using their recess time to get as many signatures to add to their letter.  Kids are also working hard to come up with clubs. Anyone in 4-5 can think of a club and fill out a form. The teachers will look at all the applications and get as many to run as they can. Kids run the clubs but teachers help. Last year, there was a board game club, stock market club, PE action club, needle felting club, and more. We will learn about the first round of clubs soon and maybe someone will write about them! Jane and William 

 On September 25th, 4-5 hosted their Open House. Open House is when families come in and students give them a tour and show the work they have been doing in class. Some things we got to show were our self portraits, tree glyphs, the books we are reading, and our awesome classroom library, It was fun being in school when it was dark outside and fun showing our families around.  By Addison and Durres 

A few weeks ago, we started creating self portraits. We learned about Romero Britto and his style , which includes patterns, bold lines, bright colors and simple designs. We all added food into our Romero Britto-inspired self-portraits because we are telling people about ourselves and our favorite foods. We are doing a study called Local Foods and we are adding foods, sometimes in repetitive patterns, to our portraits. We hung the portraits in our classroom and now we can see the similarities and differences in our class. By showing our favorite foods others can relate and connect to us. We assembled the foods into bright patterns and divided the sections with thick black lines like Romero Britto. We also hid other things we like into our self portraits. We put as much detail as we could into the pieces to show our identities. After we finished them, we mounted them on black paper and hung them on the wall. We hope you like them.  This is our first blog post of the year and we work...

Every year 4-5 takes a mystery trip. We don't know where we are going and we find out when we get there. Sometimes we go to the beach or a lake. The teachers kick off the conversation with absurd ideas. Sometimes it is an exotic place or a spot that doesn't even exist. This year they told us we were going to a bean factory, (which was knocked down) a farm that had a rare and elusive invisible sheep called cloud sheep, and that we would be working for the Morton Salt Company picking salt off the salt hay on the marsh. The teachers told us that after we help with the beans and salt we would get credit on the labels of the containers and we would get to bring home the wool of the cloud sheep. Last year's kick off was even more absurd. They told us we were going to a donut farm to plant donut seeds which were cheerios, go to have tea with the late Queen in England, go on a treasure hunt, and visit the cheese museum. After telling us where we were going the teachers gave us a pa...

We are Kat and Suzy! We are going to be bringing you this information about Grandparents and Friends Day!!!!! On May 2, 2025 at 8:47 our Grand Friends came to Waynflete. We go to share what we are doing in school like RQs, which stands for research quest. That is a research project where we read, take notes, and write an essay. But that's not our focus of this blog so we will get back to Grandparents and Friends Day. We did some writing together, shared some math, and gave tours of our classroom. Our grandparents and friends were happy to see us and they said school was different for us than it was for them. We also had Pachanga with our grand friends. We all sang songs together like when people from Nancy's home station went up and showed everyone the motions to peace like a river in sign language! And that's a wrap! by Kat and Suzy

Every year in 4-5 we go on about 4 to 5 field trips. Our most recent field trip was to the marsh. We went there because we’re studying marshes and the water cycle. We get to learn about the ecosystem, wildlife, plants, water and how humans can make a difference. We also got to go to the  Water Festival  at USM!  Every year we also go on a Mystery Trip. We do not know where we are going and our teachers give us hints that are really helpful. They say we might plant donut seeds or go to the cheese factory. Wherever we end up it will be fun.  By Ava and Ruby

4-5 is learning about the central nervous system. We learned about the spinal cord, nerves, and the brain. We had two neuroscientists come and talk about the nervous system. They were both dads of kids who are in 4-5. Each neuroscientist made a slideshow and talked about how the nervous system works. David, one of the neuroscientist dads, talked about this super super powerful computer called El Capitan and how it compares to the human brain. What do you think is more powerful? Jake, the other neuroscientist dad showed us how reflexes worked and fainting goats. Both of them talked about what was exciting about their work. That's our blog! Addison and Baxter.

We have Spirit week once every year in April. Spirit Week is where we have days that you can dress up as the assigned day.  For this year's Spirit Week we had Decade Day on Monday. We could dress like people from any decade. One person dressed like a cave man. Tuesday disguise/character day and some people even changed their names. (HAHA). Wednesday was sports/no backpack day. Most people wore jerseys and people brought crazy stuff from lacrosse bags to kitchen bowls instead of backpacks. Thursday was Wild Card Day which you could do anything you wanted to do. People dressed up as a dinosaurs or bookworms and one person even dressed up as Donald Trump. And last but not least Friday was pajamas and stuffie day!We wore pajamas and slippers and brought all kinds of stuffies. Look down for pictures! by Ruby and Jane   Monday: Decades Day! Tuesday: Disguise/Character Day! Wednesday: Sports and No Backpack Day Thursday: Wild Card Day Friday: PJ and Stuffie Day