Choice time bloggers weekly update

Today is Friday May 11th. We are STILL working on our cities in math. In social studies we are working on colonial projects, we all have different trades.--- Solly.

This week we have been making cities in math.  We have to find the area and perimeter  of the buildings.and last week we made vanilla ice cream  yummy in my tummy from kira and alexa

I can't believe it IS butter!

In Social Studies, we are learning about what life was like for the colonists in New Amsterdam.  Without electricity, running water or any modern conveniences, these colonists had to work hard to make everything they needed to survive in the New World.

In one book we read, we learned how colonists made their own butter using churns like this:

We decided to try making our own butter in class. We poured heavy cream and put a little pinch of salt into jars.  We took turns shaking the jar to turn the cream into butter. 

It took about 20 minutes of serious shaking, but in the end, we had some really delicious butter!

Choice Time Bloggers

How was Spring Break? This week at 4-309 we have been doing our state wide tests! We did three ELA ( English Language Arts) test this week. Today is Friday April 20th. We made home-made butter with heavy whipping cream and shook it in a mini jar. Happy Birthday Kyle, Chiara, and Stella. We had tasty cupcakes and sang " Happy Birthday! Next week we have the three math tests.
by Abby, Alexa and Stephanie :)

 

Visit from the Brooklyn Historical Society

Last month, we had a special guest from the Brooklyn Historical Society visit our classroom and bring in artifacts from colonial New Amsterdam.  We got a chance to explore the artifacts and figure out how they were used.  Can you name the items we saw?

Mr. Chris helps pass around a real beaver pelt.

Is is a candle holder?  An icing piper?  Nope, it's a candle mold!

This table guessed this primer would be used in Sunday School--and they were close!  Children in New Amsterdam used these primers to learn the alphabet and important prayers in school.

Brooklyn Museum

Checking out the Old Dutch house

Sketching some Near Eastern reliefs

On Wednesday, our class took a trip to the Brooklyn Museum.  It was so cool because they had Dutch houses, paintings, and artifacts.  It was so cool to see the Egyptian exhibit and learn about the mummies.  Thank you to all the moms and dads who came with us!
by Alexa & Ms. Rippe

Coming To The New World

Using tea bags to dye our journal paper

Lacing together our journal

Class 4-309 is working on historical fiction journals.  What we do in the journals is write about coming to a new world and how our trip was. We made up characters for our journals who are coming for religious freedom or to make money. So far, we've been writing good, interesting stories about how our characters are feeling about their journey.  We also have little boats on a line in the classroom that tell us where we are in the sea. To see how our trip is going is choose someone at our table to pick a piece of paper that says the weather of our trip and how many miles we covered in each round of sailing.  Some people have sailed over a 1,000 miles because they've had great weather and gentle winds.  Other boats have hit bad storms and still have a long way to go.  So that's what we are working on in Social Studies.

by Jewells

Some of our boats on their way to the New World

Super Bowl Champs!

We were so excited by the Giants' Super Bowl victory that we did a quick shared writing about last night's game.  Can you find the main idea and supporting detail sentences in our paragraph below?

The New York Giants won the Super Bowl last night.  The winning touchdown was scored in the last two minutes of the game.  Eli Manning was named the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the Super Bowl.  There will be a parade tomorrow in Manhattan to celebrate their victory.

Groundhog Day

Today we watched a Groundhog Day video to practice taking notes and writing summaries.  We learned some interesting facts about the history of holiday and the town of Punxsutawney.  If you want to watch the video again, check out the link below:

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/sara-brings-groundhog-day-out-of-shadow/63bg54w

Are you happy with Phil's prediction?
--By Alexa, Mariel & Ms. Rippe

Information Books

Our class has been working on information books since the beginning of January. The kids have been doing nonfiction information projects on people, animals, and history.  This week, we worked hard to publish our pieces.  We made sure to include nonfiction text features like a table of contents, glossary, diagrams and pictures with captions.

We are looking forward to sharing our information books with all the fourth grade classes!
Parents are invited to join us in the gym next Friday (2/10) from 9:00-9:30.  Come ready to learn!

By Solly & Ms. Rippe

Happy Chinese New Year!

Victoria's mom, Lisa, came to visit our class on Friday to teach us all about the Chinese New Year.  We learned that the Chinese New Year is based on the lunar (moon) calendar, so the date changes each year.  This year, it fell on Monday, January 23, and the celebration lasts for two whole weeks.

Lisa gave us information about the animals of the Chinese zodiac calendar.  We learned that this year is the year of the Dragon.  Many of the students in our class were born in the year of the Horse, and some were born in the year of the Snake.  Mrs. Vanegas is a horse, Ms. Rippe is an ox and Ms. Juliette is a dog.  Do you think your personality fits your zodiac animal?

Lisa also read us a legend from Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, and we discussed what this story teaches the reader about destiny.  Then, we had a chance to practice writing Chinese characters and even got our hóngbāo (red envelope) with special candy inside.

Thank you so much to Victoria and Lisa for sharing with us!  新年快樂 (Happy New Year!)

January Book Review Challenge

Mrs. Vanegas and Ms. Rippe decided to offer an optional monthly book report as a way to push the thinking of our readers and give students an opportunity to share about some of the great books they are reading.  Almost half of Class 4-309 stepped up to the challenge and completed this extra assignment in January!  On Friday, we came together to discuss our books and enjoy some special treats.  We had some great conversations about our books and got some ideas about what to read next.  We can't wait to meet again next month!

Fabulous Fifties!

Last Thursday, we celebrated the 1950s with a special dress up day.  We had a great time and helped the fifth graders raise money for their senior activities.  Check out our poodle skirts and motorcycle jackets!

Mrs. Vanegas & Ms. Rippe...all ready for the sock hop!

Special (furry!) Choice Time Guest

On Friday afternoon, Milo's dad brought in his pet dwarf rabbit Giorgio to share with us.  Milo told us all about what makes dwarf rabbits special and how you take care of them.  We all enjoyed watching Giorgio explore the carpet.  He seemed right at home and made lots of new friends in Room 309!

Choice time blogger weekly update

Hello! Today is Friday January 13th. Today we celebrated Ashley's 10th Birthday! We had some awesome cupcakes.

This week, in social studies we have been reading books about Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and other important Civil Rights leaders. Today we watched a video when Martin said the "I have a dream speech." Afterwards we wrote about what his dream was and discussed whether it had come true.

In writing, we have been doing our all about books. We have been practicing taking notes and transferring them into each section of our research..----Abigail---- (with help from Macy & Ms. Rippe!)

Birds of Prey

Today, we had some very special guests in the gym.  Look carefully at this picture...

It's a bird! It's a plane!  No--it's really a bird!

We were visited by Talons!, a special assembly about birds of prey.  We met a real falconeer and learned all about taking care of these birds.  We also got to see a raven and a hawk up close, and even got to pet the talons of an owl!

For more information about the program, you can visit http://www.talonsbirdsofprey.com/TALONS!/Welcome.html. Special thanks to Mr. Wynne for inviting us to the assembly.  It was a very memorable science class!

Choice Time weekly bloggers

Today is January 6th 2012!  What's your New Years Resolution?  We have 2 new students Alexa and Stephanie.  Alexa is from Ms. Lazar's class and Stephanie from Ms. Molina's class.---Stephanie

Hey! :) This month we're making our New Year's resolutions. We took some time to write our resolutions and make resolutions for our class, home and our personal lives too. Some of our papers are outside in-front of the classroom. Hope you had an awesome New Year's!---Abigail :)

Our New Writing Pieces

This month, we are  writing information books to teach people about our topics.  Some people are writing  about big cats, Abraham Lincoln, soccer, race car driving, and monkeys.  Today we wrote our table of contents.  Next, we will begin to write each chapter, adding information from our research.  We can't wait to share what we know!
--Alexa (& Ms. Rippe)