Going Back to Fourth Grade

We had a few special visitors to fourth grade this week. Brandon (Mrs. Morrison's brother) and Taylor (Mrs. Morrison's cousin) came in to challenge our class to a race with our math facts. Last year, Brandon did the same thing, and got beat by a bunch of fourth graders. He also lost to our class game of "Are you smarter than a fourth grader?" So, he is back for another round this year. We told him to give us a few more months to get them refreshed in our minds, then we will be ready to go. You can see him practicing his addition and subtraction mad minutes here. We could tell that Taylor has been practicing and doesn't want to get beat by a fourth grader. There is now doubt in our minds that we will be able to beat Brandon and Taylor. Let the competition begin! (Thanks Brandon and Taylor for the treats you brought in. You are welcome in fourth grade anytime.)

What Do Teachers Do After the Kids Leave!

Getting Into the Candy Bucket!

Hula Hoop Contests!

Trains on the Slides!

Scooter Races in the Hall!
We read a fun book in class this week titled, "What Do Teachers Do (After You Leave School)? by Anne Bowen. What a great book. If you are looking for a new book for your home library, this is a winner. It explores the possibilities of what teachers are doing after the kids leave. From creating slimy science experiments, to playing on the playground equipment, this books tells it all. After we read the book, each fourth grader wrote a page for our class book that we will make to go along with this book. They had some very creative ideas of what they thought their teacher did after school. Well, enjoy the pictures of Mrs. Morrison and Mrs. Winzenried. THIS IS WHAT THEY DO WHEN THE KIDS ALL LEAVE! IT IS A REAL PARTY! (Do you believe us?)

Salt Dough Maps

We just finished up our three week long unit on maps. We had a fabulous time learning about the geographical locations of Utah. As a culminating activity, we made our topographical maps. What a terrific learning tool to reinforce this concept. We had a great time creating these maps. Thank you to everyone who sent in salt dough. Also, don't be surprised if your fourth grader starts asking to go see parts of Utah. We also explored a map of many of the recreational hot spots of Utah. Utah is a great place to live!

A Day at the Symphony

We enjoyed our day at the symphony. The theme of the symphony was "weather." We heard many songs from composers that used ideas from weather to create beautiful music. One of the highlights from the symphony was creating a rainstorm as an audience. It sounded really neat. We have a few kids from our class that are currently in the orchestra at Willow Canyon. We can't wait until they get to play for the Utah Symphony someday. As you can see, our fourth graders had the heels and all ready to enjoy a day at the symphony. By the end of the day, some of us had sore feet from wearing our best dress shoes all day long. Everyone came looking their best!

Back to School Night a Success

Back to School Night was a great success. I enjoyed meeting so many of you. Thank you for taking the time to come visit your child's classroom. I know as we work hard together this year, your child will have a successful fourth grade year. Hopefully you took some time to visit our "Hall of Fame" in the main hall and enjoyed reading about our "Cast of Fourth Grade." We have some unbelievable cast members this year.

We also enjoyed making our "big body twins" to keep our seat warm until we made it to Back to School Night. Can you guess who is the "real" fourth grader?

21st Century Learning

We love having 20 new laptops in our classroom this year. We can't wait to create many projects on our laptops this year. Today we went to our computer lap and worked on brand new "big screen" mac computers. We created an acrostic poem that is now hanging up in our room. Don't forget to come to back to school night to see what we have been working hard on.

We are also enjoying having a new document camera in our classroom (see picture of Scott above). This camera allows anything to be shown underneath of it. During this particular lesson, Scott is modeling the long/short vowel sort to the class. This is an amazing new piece of technology that creates great fun with the learning process. As a teacher, I love putting student's work under the camera for everyone to see.

September in Full Swing

We had a great four day week of school and filled every second with more learning. We continued to graph in math, enjoyed participating in some Reader's Theaters, wrote a Bio Poem about ourselves, sorted short and long vowel words and started our map unit talking about longitude and latitude. Fourth graders are busy using their colored pencils to create beautiful looking maps of the world, the United States and much more. This week we will cover the great state of Utah and learn all about the landforms of the state we live in. Be looking for a note coming home about salt dough that will need to be made at home and brought to school. We will be making a salt dough landform map of Utah. The end products are amazing.

This group of fourth graders continue to amaze me. They are awesome workers and always try their best at anything given to them. We continue to explore work on the laptops. They have been going into the site historyforkids.utah.gov to learn more about Utah State symbols and facts. This is a great site to explore in.

We also continue to learn all the new procedures that come with a new teacher and a new school year. We are trying to create habits (ALL GOOD ONES) that will help us be better students and listeners. Thanks again to all the parents at home for the terrific things you do at home with your child. One last thing--DON'T FORGET TO READ 20 MINUTES EVERY NIGHT!