Tales Of A 4-5 Something

In 4-5 we started RQ’s which are Research Quests. An RQ is about a topic someone is curious and want to know more about and they get to choose it. The way we chose is by going down to the library and selecting 5 topics based on non fiction books and ranking them one to five. Then the teachers give each person a topic to study. After everyone has a book we start doing note cards by looking into a book and pulling key information and writing it down. The note cards can even be digital! After you write it down you start making a sentence, then a paragraph, and then a paper that will become your RQ. In the end, we make a visual aid. It is a long project and it is hard work but a lot of fun!

On February 11, 2026 a Dragon came into our classroom and WREAKED HAVOC! Oh wait, no, it didn’t. The dragon wasn’t real and it was fun! It was one of the Chinese dragons that you hold on a stick. More specifically, a bunch of sticks. It was red, orange, and yellow and VERY BIG!!!! There were a bunch of High Schoolers bringing it around the Lower School. The high schoolers were part of an Upper School Chinese class and they were learning about the Chinese New Year. They shared the celebration with us.  Violet and Hartley

To end our local food study, we made a big feast. Each homestation did a small part to prepare our delicious meal. Tim’s homestation made blueberry salsa, while Nancy’s made cranberry poppers and seaweed popcorn. Julia Fs made gajar ka halwa and Julia S’ made three sisters stew. We put all the food together to make one big feast. We don’t know how the other homestations made their foods, but we can tell you how we made ours. Tim gave us a big bowl of blueberries. We chopped up strawberries and diced them finely We quartered limes and zested them. And also shredded onions and sliced cilantro. We scooped applesauce and dolloped it in. Lastly, we took a spoon and stirred it all up. We set up and put all the good food on the tables. The blueberry salsa was a bit sour but sweet at the same time, delicious. The thick broth of the three sisters' stew soaked up the taste of vegetables. The cranberry poppers were sweet on the outside but tart and soft on the inside. The gajar ka halwa ha...

In 4-5, we are learning about the 50 states of America and where they go on a map. Our teachers have taught us some tricks to help us learn where the states are. Here are the tricks: Chef Mimal which is made up of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana,  FOGO, which is made up of North Dakota, South Dakota, Virginia, West Virginia, South Carolina and North Carolina. If you find one, you get one.  The Box, which is if you see the 48 connected states like a rectangle, you can see Maine, Florida, California and Washington in the corners   UCAN, which is Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. If you can find it, you can do it! These states make up the Four Corners in the southwest.  Mitten , Michigan Lastly, Alaska, and Hawaii, which are the two states that are not connected to the other 48. Which ones do you know? By Addison and Durres

  On Monday, Jan 26, 2026, the Hebdalings in Tim’s homestation (and in all of Waynflete) had a snowday! On average, we think it snowed about 18 inches across the towns that we all come from! Many people had lots of fun, ranging from skiing on the slopes to making snow forts in their backyards. One of the craziest things someone did was dig a 16-foot-long tunnel underneath the snow!  The really cool thing about snow days, is that when you get back to school, you have a bunch of fluffy untouched snow on the playground. I specifically love to tackle my friends because the snow acts like a crashpad. Also, sometimes the snow piles up into towering mountains, and people play on top of the hill. We even get to sled! When will the next big storm come? By Lizzie and Zach

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...