PIXIE

We FINALLY had a workshop for the faculty to receive training in the Pixie software the students have been using since January. It was great to see all the wonderful things available through the Tech4Learning website. All the teachers actually prepared a lesson to use for the first week of school in September! There are a great deal of graphic organizers and lesson ideas available with this software. I am looking forward to using theses tools with my next 4th grade class, especially to practice and improve our writing skills! We were able to view all the student's work through the website set up by our Pixie representative. Great work everyone!!

BODY SYSTEMS

After the students completed their collaborative body systems posters, we finished the chapter with a quick quiz and a video. No matter what the topic, the kids LOVE watching Miss Frizzle go on her crazy adventures with the Magic School Bus!!

Vocabulary Hangman

It is quite a challenge getting some students to write, it's even more of a challenge to get them to use a variety of vocabulary words to improve their writing. I use the Sadlier Oxford website to encourage the children to incorporate new, more exciting vocabulary words in their writing. The Hangman game is the one they enjoy the most, we play it every Friday afternoon.

Wednesday June 16th

In class today, my fourth grade students shared their wonderful book reports with the class. Part of the report required them to create a fictitious correspondence between the two main characters after the story had ended. The setting was post WWII Europe and the characters were two 11 year old girls who were best friends and separated by the Nazis.
Before assigning the report, I showed the class how to use a website to help them organize their thoughts and create their letters.

Body Systems

On Friday June 11th, we started a new science unit-"The Human Body". The children enjoyed viewing the video from Discovery Education. After the video, they broke into groups to start their posters on the heart/the circulatory system, the digestive system, the skeletal system and the nervous system. This project will continue on Monday the 14th.

Wednesday June 9th

Today in my fourth grade class, students took two final exams, spelling & grammar. This took up our morning and then the kids got to go relax and have fun in gym. The third graders put on a play which we attended after lunch. In social studies, we continued our discussion of slavery & the underground railroad. We read a related story out of our reading anthology entitled "My Brother Martin". It was a short biography written by Martin Luther King Jr.'s sister. I had the students compare/contrast the old issues of slavery during the Civil War era to the more modern concept of civil rights.