The Highlights of Our Week

Field Trip

This week, on Wednesday, we took a field trip to Shimek Elementary to see a visiting author.  Her name is Jacqueline Davies.  She is the author of the Lemonade War series, as well as many other books.  We learned about her very first book that she wrote in second grade.  When she grew up she went to a great college, called Brown University, but she lost her confidence because there were so many other great writers at her college.  After college, she moved to Greece, then Paris.  She worked many jobs in Europe, including a library clerk.  She eventually came back to the US and began working on children's books.  She received lots of rejection letters for six straight years before she got her first book published.  Currently, she is working on the next book in her series The Lemonade Wars.  We thought she was very interesting and it was fun to see her and meet an author.

Mrs. Johnson's Birthday

On October 23, 2013 Mrs. Johnson had her birthday.  We gave her a card, a book about Snoopy, and a Snoopy stuffed animal.  She gave us the best cupcakes ever.  They had Mike & Ikes, white chocolate chips, M&Ms, and mini chocolate chips on them, and purple frosting.  They looked like vampires, or Count Dracula, for Halloween.

Pink Friday

On Friday, we are having Pink Friday for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  It is this Friday, October 25.  We are supposed to wear pink, but it is optional.  The student council is giving us pink ribbons.

Below are pictures from our field trip and of the cupcakes we loved.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Johnson's 3rd and 4th Graders

Iowa Assessments

This week during Language Arts, the 3rd and 4th graders have been working on Iowa Assessments.  The Iowa Assessments are taken by many different school districts.  Iowa Assessments were testing our skills in certain subjects.  We took the test everyday for one school week.  These are the subjects that our tests covered: Reading, Science, Punctuation, Spelling, Math, Social Studies, Computation, Vocabulary, Written Expression, and Capitalization.  Today we finished our testing.  We celebrated being done by having some GORP and apple juice.  GORP is a mix of dried snack foods, sort of like a trail mix.  Our GORP included: popcorn, M&Ms, Goldfish, raisins, and Cheerios.

Third Graders' Thoughts About the Iowa Assessments:

"It really wasn't that fun." -Sam
"On Monday it was sort of nerve racking, but after a while we got used to it." -Iain
"For me, some parts were fun and some parts were really bad." -Owen
"It took some time to get used to it." -Lydia

Fourth Graders' Thoughts About the Iowa Assessments:

"In my opinion, I loved the tests and I always look forward to them." -Heidi
"It was awesome/hard." -Lohman
"When the tests are coming up, I always want it to come.  Later, I sometimes get bored doing them over and over, but am glad we don't have to do our regular spelling tests." -Darya

The picture below is of a group of students taking the Iowa Assessments.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Johnson's 3rd and 4th Graders

This Week in Math and Language Arts

During math and language arts time, we are split up by grade level.  The 3rd and 4th graders are doing different things.  We will describe them below.

Fourth Grade:

Math - This week we are learning about basic multiplication and division facts (0-10 facts).  We are practicing out basic facts using fact triangles.  We all took a multiplication timed test (basic facts).  Everyone is improving.  We learned some strategies for how to solve basic facts quickly.  We learned how to solve the nines facts using our fingers. When you multiply nine by any number, the product's digits should add up to nine.  Example: 9x3=27, so 2+7=9.  We also did in and out, or "What's My Rule" tables.  In a What's My Rule table, there is a rule that you have to follow.  A number goes into the chart a different number comes out based on what the rule is.  In: 1,000  Rule: -900  Out: 100

Language Arts - This week we are learning about fictional narratives and writing our own.  We are also practicing Venn diagrams.  We read a story called "Once Upon a Cool Motorcycle Dude."  In this story, there was a princess who's ponies were stolen by a giant, and then a guy on a motorcycle helped her save them.  The story was silly because it kept going back and forth between who was telling the story (a boy and a girl).  This year we have new language arts books called Practice Books.  We work on spelling and grammar in them.  They are a part of our Journeys materials so the Practice Book pages align with the stories we are reading each week.

Third Grade:

Math - At the beginning of the week, we did a lot of subtraction practice.  Some of us used base-ten blocks, some of us made posters, and some of us used an abacus.  We also have been studying number stories and strategies for how to solve them, like a Parts and Total Chart, and other diagrams.  We are also learning about ballpark estimates.  We took timed tests for basic addition and subtraction facts.  Mrs. Hill's class got to go to the computer lab today and play math games.  We did some in and out tables this week, too.  

Language Arts - We are doing a personal narrative about something that has changed our life.  For example: you got a new pet or won your first soccer game of the year.  You also could write about if you lost a family member or something sad that changed your life.  We are doing the Daily 5.  There are five choices each day: Read to someone, listen to reading, read to self, work on writing, and word work.  We also have been meeting with our book groups.  During book group, about five people at a time meet with the teacher and we read and do assignments.

Both 3rd and 4th graders took a practice test this week for Iowa Assessments.  We practiced math and reading.  We had a little booklet that had the questions in it, and then we filled in bubbles on an answer sheet.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Johnson's 3rd and 4th Graders

4th Graders with LA Journeys Books

3rd Graders with LA Journeys Books

Hawkeye Spirit Week

This week is Iowa Hawks Spirit Week to celebrate their Homecoming.  At our school, we are doing different spirit days to show our spirit for the Hawkeyes.

Our first spirit day was on Monday.  It was called Manic Monday.  We wore ties, hats, and sunglasses.

Tuesday was Tired Tuesday.  We wore pajamas and comfy clothes.  Some comfy clothes people in our class wore were long socks, robes, fluffy and warm things, slippers, sweatpants, muscle shirts, and baggy t-shirts.

Today is WaCkY wEdNeSdAy!  Today we are wearing wacky clothes, such as mismatched socks, backwards clothes, ugly clothes, weird stuff, mismatched shoes, tutus, silly hats, Afros, colored hair, inside-out shirts, underwear over pants, weird hair-dos, bracelets, sunglasses, checkerboard socks, and shoes on the wrong feet.  Our pictures below are of our wacky outfits today.

Tomorrow (Thursday) is Throwback Thursday.  We are supposed to wear clothes from a long time ago or your favorite era.  Some ideas for tomorrow include pilgrims, 1980s bright running clothes and big jewelry, poodle skirts from the 1950s, pirate outfits, tye dye from the 1960s and 1970s, old fashioned hats, or dressing like Elvis.

Friday is called Fan Gear Day.  On Friday, we can wear Iowa shirts, black and gold, jerseys, cheerleader skirts, black and gold wigs, Hawkeye sweatshirts, dye your hair black and gold, and Hawkeye hats.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Johnson's Wacky 3rd and 4th Graders