Festivus!

Dear Families,

I finished designing, publishing, and printing a classroom newspaper that contains each student’s news report that they published during the first part of our journalism writing unit. Their reporting is certainly…intriguing. This was the first time that the students learned this type of writing. This unit started with observing an event, either at school or at home, and reporting on that event. As you’ll be able to tell when you check out the newspaper, the events ranged from minuscule to big. For example, Kennedy wrote about when her mom broke her arm, Elmer wrote about when his family was trying to find his dog, Justin wrote about basketball practice, and Natasha wrote about a class meeting held in Ms. Tucker’s classroom. One difficult aspect of the unit was not using “I” when writing. This was definitely a challenge. I hope you enjoy checking out the newspaper with your child.

Last week, representatives from the United States Forest Service visited our classroom. They gave a quick presentation encouraging students to embrace the ecological and historical significance of the sites within the National Park system. Most importantly, each fourth grader received a FREE annual pass to any National Park. This is amazing and if you plan on doing any road trips within the next year and wanted to visit any of the national parks, your child’s pass can get the whole car in for FREE! FREE! WOO HOO! ‘MERIKA!

There are no spelling words over Winter Break.

Please keep collecting those Box Tops. Each one helps our school!

Over Winter Break, students are expected to read. Students should immerse themselves in the topic they’re learning about for their action research project. Their plans were sent home last week. After Winter Break, students will take their notes on their topic and craft a presentation to give in the form of a speech. However, these presentations will not be given in front of the whole class. Rather, they will be recorded in the style of a TedTalk. We’ll then watch them! In order to give a speech on a particular topic, students need to learn ABOUT that topic. As they read over Winter Break, they should focus on their topic in order to become experts.

Seeing how we’re on the cusp of Winter Break, I thought it would be interesting to ask the students to identify a favorite memory, or moment, or foggy recollection from the first four months of the school year. So, I did just that and here’s what they had to share:

  • “I really enjoyed making friends and reading and going home.” ~ Kennedy
  • “One of my favorite memories is meeting is meeting Johnny and…lunch.” ~Chase
  • “One of my favorite memories so far is P.E.” ~ Wyatt
  • “I really enjoyed what we did in Drama these four months.” ~ Lucas
  • “A great memory is when I ate pizza at lunch.” ~ Gabriel
  • “I really enjoyed friends, P.E., and my cast off!” ~ Oak
  • “One of my favorite memories so far is getting friends and enjoying them.” ~ Ariana
  • “I really enjoyed the friends and lunch.” ~ Kamryn
  • “One of my favorite memories so far is I really enjoyed making friends and read, math.” ~ Diya
  • “I really enjoyed math and recess.” ~ Elmer
  • “A great memory is when I met Mr. B” ~ Patrick
  • “One of my favorite memories so far are math, P.E., [Mr. B’s] jokes, and my friends.” ~ Kevin
  • “A great memory is when we will play P.E. It will sometimes be Last Man Standing.” ~ Justin
  • “I really enjoyed meeting new people.” ~ Italia
  • “One of my favorite memories so far is that I got to hang out with my friends. I really enjoyed art and science.” ~ Rebekah
  • “I really enjoyed everything! Mr. B, reading, friends, and food.” ~Dempsey
  • “One of my favorite memories this year was meeting Diya and Ariana.” ~ Livia
  • “I like P.E. One Of my favorites is T-Rex run.” ~ Aksel
  • “One of my favorite memories so far this school year was when I made my new best friends, Rebekah and Kamryn.” ~ Natasha
  • “What I loved about the school is when I first started school and Kevin was the first student to be my best friend for this school year.” ~ Jonathan
  • “I enjoyed sitting next to Peter.” ~Viking
  • “My favorite part of school so far was all the new people I have met.” ~Anand
  • “I really enjoyed the presentation Earth in Gorge Studies a couple of months ago.” ~ Jacob
  • “One of my favorite memories so far is getting new friends.” ~ Jack
  • “I really enjoyed everything so far this year! Yes! What I was talking about, I liked P.E.” ~ Ethen
  • “One of my favorite memories is playing Quizlet and winning.” ~ Joe
  • “I’ve enjoyed A LOT so I can’t really choose a favorite, but one of the best memories I have had is when we first played Last Man Standing and when got to make Land Art.” ~ Jessie

Enjoy the next two weeks,

Mr. B

Vocab of the Week: proudly, heritage, style, hoist

Idiom of the Week: Hanging by a Thread