Tales Of A 4-5 Something

At Frith Farm we learned about farming sustainably. We helped gather vegetables for the Locker Project . It is a program where kids who do not have food at school can stop by and get fresh food to take home for dinner or to eat for lunch. We gathered carrots and kale. We liked harvesting the carrots because our hands got dirty and it was satisfying to pull up the carrots. We also saw tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, corn, brussel sprouts, beets, and raspberry bushes. A couple of us also saw a few field mice running through the plants. At the end we got to play on the hay maze that was set up for the Farm Olympics and we got to take some carrots home. That was fun! Pippa and Leo

On October 14, 2021 all of 4-5 went to Merritt Island Oyster Farm . We went because it was part of our Farms to Foods Unit. In this unit we are studying aquaculture so this was perfect.  We had four different stations and we rotated around throughout the day. One was cracking oyster shells with a hammer. Some were hard. We learned oysters have many parts and that they are filter feeders. Oysters clean the water with the filters that they have, unlike humans. They can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day. Dot showed us oysters filtering water and they did a quick job of making it clean.  Another station was measuring oysters and culling them. We learned how Jordi has to check the cages, shake them, and clean them. At another station we learned the anatomy of an oyster and we even got to try some! Some people liked them and others didn't. As we walked around the island we also got to clean up the trails. A person from Maine Islands and Trails was there and helped us do that....

We were lucky to be able to visit an alpaca farm. Marcia raises alpacas for their wool to make yarn. Her company is called Lana Plantae Yarns . The coolest thing is that she makes her own dyes. She collects plants and flowers that she grows or orders to make dyes. Once her wool is spun she soaks it in water and then the dye. We liked all the colors. We also saw hens and a rooster on the farm. There were sheep in the pen and even a peacock in the old barn. We found a ton of peacock feathers around the farm and that was strange for us. We went to the farm to help us learn about local farms. It definitely was a memorable trip.  Lucia and Madeline

  We like PE because of the games that we get to play. This week we took a driver's test to get ready for a game called Cannonball. For the test we had to earn money by being a responsible driver with our scooter. We had to stay in the lines, not knock down any buildings or run over people. Once we passed out test we could do Cannonball. We each get a partner and they sit on a scooter. We have to push them around on the scooter and the person on the scooter can through balls at other team's cones. If your cone gets knocked down you go to the end of the line. The point of the game is to stay in as along as you can. This is a fun game and we want to play it again soon. We also got to work with hula-hoops. Our teacher, Mr. Nelson, had us build a house with hoops. Once we built the house we had to go through it. The hardest challenge was to go through the house blindfolded.  We get PE twice a week all year long.  Sal and Aaron Mat Flipping on the first week of school

  In 4-5 we have been doing Digital Literacy. These classes have been about how we can use technology in the safest and most helpful ways. We started off thinking about research and using specific search terms and looking at urls before clicking the link. We looked at the end of links to see .edu .gov, or .com to help us decide if we could trust a site. When you click a link it isn't automatically helpful. You have to think critically about the site. We did a "sniff test" for the pages to make sure it was good for research or learning. We also looked at the sites to see if they were reliable, accurate, reasonable, and had the names of authors or a help link We tested ourselves by exploring these sites.  Is this site a reliable site? Northwest Tree Octopus .           What about All About Explorers ?  Soon, we will each receive our own iPad! Yeaahhh! We practiced these skills so we can be safe in school with the device.  Evie and Adam

On Thursday, September 16 we got on the bus to Kettle Cove beach. The teachers gave us a few directions and then we all got off and had the time of our lives. Some people headed right to the water to go swimming, some built damns to block the stream and make a wading pool, and some went exploring on the rocks. We even found a small waterfall next to the bridge. There were tide pools where we found crabs and shrimp. The day started out a little cloudy but got very sunny. Even though the water was warm for Maine it still made us shiver.  All of 4-5 enjoyed the best five hour field trip ever.  -Tom and Abraham

This year we have been working on an Immigration Study which helped us talk about the Industrial Revolution, The Great Migration, and modern immigration. To learn more, we are interviewing people who have immigrated to the United States and sharing their stories through writing. We have been asking them a lot of questions about how they left their home country, why, and what their emotions were. Before we started doing the interviews we prepared questions and practiced (here are some of the questions). We also made a plan . When we were talking with our interviewee we took notes about their answers . After the interview we wrote a nonfiction story about them and the country that they came from. These aren’t boring stories because we got to add our own touches. Some of the people we interviewed had some amazing stories. Like one one of the people left their home country when they were 11. Sometimes, people got separated from their families. Some people came from Canada, Ethiopia, Mexic...