Fossil Center

We were able to squeeze in visiting the fossil center before school was out this year.  We got to dig for fossils and observe some fossil replicas.  It's always nice being outside and still learning!

Career Day

We had our Career Day this year on the last day of school.  Students dressed as the career they wanted to be and we invited our parents to visit and explain their career.  We had several parents visit us and they shared lots of great information!  Before our Career Day, we did a little research on different occupations we thought we would enjoy.  Students took a career survey found online and the survey identifies the career clusters they would be interested in pursuing.  Students were also encouraged to ask family members about their careers also.  I hope that this project helps them begin to think about their futures and the type of career they would like to work towards as they continue their education!

Kentucky Teacher Publication

Our class made the Kentucky Teacher publication!  Follow this link to read the article about how fourth grade students at CCES are using the Osprey Webcam to make real-life science observations!

http://www.kentuckyteacher.org/features/2012/05/nest-practices/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+KentuckyTeacher+%28Kentucky+Teacher%29

Breakfast Book Club

These fourth and fifth grade students participated in a breakfast book club this year, hosted by Mrs. Valerie!  They read chapter books and met each week on Friday during breakfast to discuss what they read during the week.  They also enjoyed homemade pancakes and other treats while they discussed what they read.  Their culminating task was to visit the public library and join Ms. Barbara while they shared a favorite story with the young children and helped them create a volcano that exploded!  Read on, Studio 214!

End of Year Video

Here is the link to watch our end of year video.  I used some pictures from throughout the year and some taken during the last week of school and imported them into Animoto.  Animoto is a really cool website that lets your import pictures and videos and puts it to music and creates the transitions for you.  I subscribe to it, but you can create free, thirty second videos and it is so easy!

Enjoy! 

http://animoto.com/play/a120HwfcAWB160YjF91L0g

Georgia Pen Pals!

We received our last letters from our Georgia pen pals today with pictures!  They were very excited to see what their pen pal looks like and they are a little sad that our writing project is ending.  We will be sending our last letter to them on Monday!

Nursing Home Visit

We visited the Cumberland Valley Nursing Home this week to release balloons in honor of "Nursing Home Week" and then the enjoyed snow cones and played games with the residents of the nursing home.  We did this in place of traveling out of town on a field trip due to the expensive costs related to traveling out of town and because we had to have all field trips completed before May 1, which we could not do because of state testing.

I have to say that I teared up watching the students interact with the elderly folks that day. I watched as the students would play checkers, corn bag toss, and tic-tac-toe, and they would let their opponent win on purpose and I'm telling you, I had to hold back the tears!  I was so proud to be a part of this little trip and so proud of our kids and their positive display of character! It is days like this one, I know this is one of the reasons that I love my job so much!

Special Treat for Lunch

Today we had a special treat for lunch- we ordered from Tastee Freeze!  We had a lovely lunch outside in our school courtyard together and it was really great!  As you can see, most of us sat in the shade on the sidewalk.

Field Day

Here are some videos from the Science Guy at Field Day.  This was my favorite station, but that could be because I love science so much!  All the exerpeiments covered material we had studied this year in fourth grade- it was a great review and really exciting!

Grid Coordinates Quadrant I

We are reviewing how to plot points in quadrant one.  A couple of years ago, I had the idea one night when I couldn't sleep, of turning a Twister board game into a grid coordinates game.  Here is my version of it!  It could easily be adapted into any quadrant!

Good Morning America- Your Three Words

We have been popping a balloon everyday for the past two weeks with a fun task to complete since it is the end of the school year, just to make each day more interesting.  I found the idea on Pinterest. 

Today's task was to complete a video for Good Morning America for the segment of "Your Three Words".  We came up with our words and decided to film it in the CCES Library in front of the beautiful mural that was added this school year.  Our three words are "Summer Break Rocks" and we are really excited about this last week of school!  We hope we get put on the show!  Stay tuned- if I get notified, I will post it on the blog!

Career Survey for Elementary Students

Here is the link for the career survey we are going to be taking this week in preparation for our Career Day on May 21, the last day of school.  We are so excited to have our parents come share cool details about their occupations and to be able to dress up as our career choice too on that day! 

This survey has many career clusters and will identify the career cluster each student has an interest in for their future career.  This will help students begin to think about careers in preparation of their career plans in middle school.  It's never too early to prepare for the future by setting goals and dreaming a little!

www.schcounselor.com/2010/03/fun-and-interactive-career-interest.html

Pizza Party

Studio 214 had perfect attendance all week long during our testing week, which is pretty amazing to get all twenty-five students here for an entire week!  For this accomplishment, we earned a pizza party!  Way to go, Studio 214- you make me proud!

Order of Operations Introduction

To help students get started on the right foot in their fifth grade classes, we are going to be introducing a few topics during our last seven days of school to give them a headstart!  One of the topics we started today is Order of Operations.  Here is the link to a cool song that explains the order of operations and is sung to "Umbrella".  It gets stuck in my head everytime I hear it!  Be expecting to see some items coming home where we have worked on this!

http://justruntraining.com/index.php?option=com_community&view=videos&task=video&groupid=1&videoid=12&Itemid=120

Studio 214 Class Picture

We took this picture yesterday in front of our school.  It is such a pretty back drop! 

Area Math Chant

We added another math chant a couple of weeks ago for "area".  This one is different from the one we have done the past two years.  Don't forget, Studio 214, "area is length times width!"

Spring Carnival at CCES!

We had our spring carnival at CCES last night and it was so much fun!  There were a few different booths this year that students could visit such as the photo booth, the jail, and the ping-pong toss where you could win baby chicks and fish to take home as pets!  Here are some pictures from members of our class that came by the jail.  Our school raised a lot of money and we had a great turnout.  Thank you for coming out!

Reptile Review

Today we have been reviewing mammals and reptiles and lucky for us, Ms. Paulette brought her pet snake to share with our class!  I touched the snake, which was the first time I had ever touched a living snake, and it felt completely different than what I thought it would feel like.  It was really cool!

Rock This Test!

We're gonna ROCK this K-PREP test!  Ms. Valerie made this video of third, fourth, and fifth grade students for our pep rally today- the students loved it!

April Students of the Week

These students represented our class for April's students of the week.  They have worked hard to complete all their work and to remember our rules and procedures in Studio 214.  Keep up the good work!

Hillshire Farm- GO MATH!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8_wr0tGP_0&feature=related

We used this commercial to create a chant like the Hillshire Farm commercial to remember the difference between factors and multiples.  I don't know about you, but I love funny commercials and they get stuck in my head!  I got the idea from attending the Kentucky Math Conference.  At a session we attended, the presenter suggested using tv shows, commercials, and songs or anything in pop culture to tie in content curriculum because in general, students watch television so often that when they see those things at home at night, it would remind them of what we studied at school!  Genius! 

The students helped write this chant and they did a great job!  I hope you enjoy and don't forget the difference between a factor and a multiple! 

Here are the lyrics to the chant if you would like to use it.  One person leads the chant, while the rest of the class repeats.

Go Math!  Go Math!

I say let's multiply,

I say let's multiply.

I say let's multiply the factors and get the multiples.

When I say mutiply, you say factors.

Multiply- factors.

Go MATH!

Planting Seeds

We are learning about plants and used our school green house to plant some seeds to watch them grow.  There is an experiment ongoing to see what happens with plants that do not receive water or sunlight.  Students made their predictions and we will test their hypothesis to see if they are correct!