Tales Of A 4-5 Something

In our class we made one word posters like a short New Year's resolution. With this project we also talked about similes and metaphors. First, we made three goals that we had for school and another three for home. Then we tried to find one word that explained our goals for the rest of the year. Goals could be something we could finish, do independently, and stretch our comfort zones. Some are broad and some are very specific. It was easier for some and harder for others. Here is a picture of three: Elefe, Diego, and JJ

It was so cool coming into the lobby and seeing the sights for our global focus of Spain: the flags hung across the lobby, the big silhouettes of bulls mounted on the walls and in the stairwell, and our buddies’ self-portraits with the Spanish speech bubbles with our “quotes” above them. The best thing, though, was the smells. I smelled tapas being made. Tapas are small plates of (cheese and ham) (vegetables) or other things. Rafe  This is what we are saying in our reflections. We have to write after each day to talk about what we learned and what we thought. It is fun but it is hard too. "I am very excited for Global Focus this year! I thought I knew a lot about Spain but I was wrong."  "It's so cool see countries that are so different than ours."  "Walking into the lobby after a long song at WIC was magical. I had forgotten that it was all jazzed up.""It was very realistic in that we did a lot of stuff people in spain would probably...

The upcoming holiday weekend, January 19, 20, and 21, we think we will have at least 5 inches of snow a day. We used to have snow on the Lower Playground. There was so much snow, but then the temperatures dropped and the snow turned to ice. Cheeks & noses have turned pink. Now it’s icy which is good for sledding and sliding. When will it warm up? Thankfully Friday it will go up into the 30’s . Lots of us have been going skiing and lots more will go skiing this weekend! Elizabeth and Daphne

We have a lot of fun in Studio. I think Studio is a chance for kids do what they like, drawing and art, with a great teacher. Some of our work goes on the walls in the Lower School and some goes in the gallery. These pictures show what the gallery is like. Have you been to see it? You know that you can do the art too! This picture and video is how we are making paste paper for our accordion books. These pictures are of the weavings we are doing like the weaving in a Paul Klee watercolor. Rafe

When we were studying Immigration and Industrial Revolution we were reading books that had characters who immigrated. Everyone in 4-5 read a book like that. In our class we read Maggie's Door, Flying The Dragon, Esperanza Rising, and Honeysuckle House. Each book has a character that left their home to move to America. Some of the stories were historical fiction and two took place today. Even though books happened at different times we found things that each book had in common. At the end we wrote a summary of our book and then made a soundtrack for the book. We made believe the book was a movie and we got to decide what songs played for certain parts. We had to make sure we shared what we knew about the book and sometimes we forgot because we liked the music part. We also got to make a new book cover for the book we read.       Read our summaries and listen to our music. We hope you like it. Maggie's Door      Esperanza Rising ...

In favor of the theme, Immigration and Industrial Revolution, we used a program called Minecraft in order to build our representation of a mill city. We got information from our study of mills and the Industrial Revolution. We saw some videos, worked with maps, and read stories. We learned how the land changed when life went from agrarian to industrial. We learned how hard it was to work in the mills. We also learned about what it was like to travel to a new country then and now. That was push and pull.   Before we built out mill cities each person got to apply for a job. They could be a Hydro Engineer, Mill Architect, City Planner, or Logo Designer. We did a lot before we even started building like designing a plan on graph paper. Then we met in our teams and worked on our jobs ( Logo design planning ). While we built we had to keep showing that we were connecting with the things we learned. ( Canal building and the location of boarding houses ). In the end, w...

The keys tapping and everyone is working tap… tap… tap… Here in 4-5 we are making nonfiction narratives. We had people come in to school who have immigrated to the U.S. Some people were students, some were teachers, some were parents, and others were grandparents. They all told us their stories. My group is writing the story of a girl named Amina who has an AMAZING STORY! You can see our writing on our Thinglink. We all hope that everyone in the world gets a chance to write one of these AMAZING stories! We are all so excited for our next writing project on cartooning! By Ami