Our Kindness Theme Door Decorating Contest

Our Buckets are Full
with Warm Fuzzy Feelings! An arched banner with an over-flowing bucket connects our two classroom doors!

Flat Stanleys Have Been Arriving

It has been so exciting to receive so many emails and letters from Flat Stanley's travels. He has had lots of adventures that have been beautifully narrated by family and friends. We even had a poem written about his outing! He has gotten to see so many places. We will be looking closely at each adventure as we "travel" in our social studies units to each region of the United States. This is a year long project, so you are welcome to tell friends and family that have not sent Stanley that he can come back anytime. He is even welcome to have multiple excursions :). As we study each of Flat Stanley's adventures I will send all of the artifacts from his adventures home with the student who sent him. Thank you so much for supporting our project. I have loved this as much as the kids!

Unit 2 Realistic Fiction Writing a Success!

Students recently published their realistic fiction pieces and shared with students on the downstairs 4th grade team. It was a great opportunity for them to see their friends and receive/give positive feedback on their realistic fiction stories.

Renewable Resources: Science

Mrs. Regan Nickels, assistant superintendent, was invited and visited our classes on November 3. Mrs. Nickels started her presentation by "bringing us to the beach". 

Many students had misconceptions about when digging into the earth the temperature would get warmer, but Mrs. Nickels explained that just like when you dig in the sand on a warm day, it is actually cooler and that a certain depth, the earth experiences ambient temperatures. 

She shared her knowledge through diagrams and videos how geothermal energy works. We connected this to our own community;  one hundred and twenty five pipes were drilled 500 feet deep at Hampden Academy. That air is collected and cycled through heat pumps which help to keep the high school warm in winter and cool and comfortable during warmer weather.  

Thank you Mrs. Nickels for sharing in our learning experience!

Wax Museum

Our "Interpreting Characters" Unit ended with a wax museum celebration! Students were asked to dress as a character from their independent reading book and to share two traits with evidence to support their ideas. Classrooms from Weatherbee visited our wax museum on Friday, Nov. 3rd.  Proud posers were exceptional while our visitors voraciously read and learned about our characters and traits. You could have heard a pin drop in the hallways!

We apologize to parents for having to change dates at the last minute. It was a definitely a crazy week where flexibility was essential to our school survival.

Interpreting Characters Celebration

As a celebration of our Interpreting Characters unit, Team Rand House & Co., will be displaying a living character wax museum on October 31st from 2:30-2:50 pm.

During this time, our 4th graders will "be on display" as a character from a good fit book. Other classrooms have been invited to walk the upstairs hallway enjoying seeing students in costume as one of the characters from their book. 

Our goal is to have every 4th grader name two character traits and describe situations from the story as evidence to support those ideas. They have also been taught to use quotes from the book so we can show, not just tell, about our characters. 

Students have already began naming character traits and providing evidence. Offering guidance and feedback on this will be the topic of reading conferences this coming week. Students will be typing the information into their google accounts which they can access at home. 

It would be great if you could talk to your child about their project, get a sense of the character they are growing ideas about, and help them put together a simple costume about their character to be ready for October 31st. 

Winter Carnival Book Character Day 2016. Mrs. Whitehouse as Viola Swamp from Miss Nelson books. Mrs. Randall as Edward Tulane

First Writing Celebration

We have completed our first writing unit! The genre was personal narrative. Students shared their pieces with peers on Tuesday, Oct. 3rd.