Instrument Sound Projects

We are using some alternate assessments to get away from all paper- pencil tests.  One way we did this recently was to have students create a product and then score themselves and reflect using the rubric.  I was really impressed with their creativity and the care they took in creating their instruments and recording their information in their science journals!

Halloween Snack

Thank you to all the parents who sent a bag of candy for today's snack- we had several bags!  We had chips, cupcakes, drinks, and candy at the very end of the day- so be ready for some energetic kiddos!  I had a little surprise on my desk when I got finished passing out cupcakes! lol  The giggling gave it away, so I wasn't nearly as scared... :)

4-H Officers

We elected 4-H officers on Tuesday of this week.  Officers in Studio 214 are:

Cyrus- President

Braylee- Vice President

Colton- Secretary
Sarah- Reporter

Paris and Stacy- Recreation Leaders

Awards- First Nine Weeks

Last week, we had an awards ceremony for all students who made all A's or all A's and B's on their report cards.  We also had several students with perfect attendance.  Keep up the good work, Studio 214!  I'm so proud of all your hard work!

CCHS Band Performance

On Friday, students were taken to the highschool football field to watch an amazing performance by the CCHS marching band.  The band traveled to Bowling Green to compete in the semi-finals for the KMEA State Band Competition this past Saturday.  They did such a great job and it brought back a lot of fond memories for me too because I was in band for several years in Adair County.

Storybird Stories

We have been using a free subscription to www.storybird.com to write stories using story structure.  (Check out a future post of our story structure chant!)  After completing a webquest on theme, we used a story map to create a fictional story with all the parts of story structure.  They turned out great and a copy of it will be going in their writing folders!  Students were given a prompt and a rubric to guide their work, collaborated with their peers to revise, and then used their rubric to reflect and score themselves before they turned their work into me.

All Star Readers

Tomorrow is All-Stars day at CCES!  Dress as your favorite sports all star or wear any of your Panther sports gear.  If Studio 214 has 75% of our class dressed up tomorrow, we will get our name put into a drawing for a class IPAD!  We will get our name entered again if we have 50% of our class come to the Family Learning Night tomorrow night from 4:00-7:00.  We also get our name put in the drawing for every $10 we get in our coin bucket for our classroom library.  Help us win the IPAD! :)  Come check out the book fair and purchase some new books to read at home!

Blog Report- Eston

Check out Eston's weekly blog report for Studio 214!

Blog Report- Haley

Check out Haley's weekly blog report for Studio 214!

Blog Report- Briley

Check out Briley's weekly blog report for Studio 214!

Blog Report- Braylee

Check out Braylee's weekly blog report for Studio 214!

Missoula Performance

Once every year, the Missoula Acting Company spends a week in the Cumberland County School district.  They have auditions on Monday and by Friday, the students perform a play production.  This year was outstanding!  We had some students from Studio 214 who were performers and they did an awesome job!  Keep up the good work and remember to always dream big!

Fourth Grade Field Trip

We took a fourth grade field trip before fall break to New Haven, Kentucky, to the Kentucky Railway Museum.  We took a train ride through some historical sites of Kentucky and had lunch on the train.  It was a beautiful day and we had a great trip!  A special thanks to all the parents and grandparents who attended the trip with their fourth grader!

Assembly on Bullying

Bullying is an issue in most school and we had an assembly last week to discuss the types of bullying and how to stop it.  The speaker was a police officer from Nicholasville and he did a great job explaining what bullying is and why we shouldn't just stand back and do nothing when we see it happening on the playground, the bus, the bathroom, the lunchroom, or even the classroom.  All fourth and fifth grade students at CCES got to attend the assembly.  Paris got to do a little acting!

Discovery Sound Stations

In science today we completed five stations to discover more hands-on about how sound works and to see in action what we have read about the past couple of days.  The main things students needed to learn from our work is that sound is heard because of vibrations and that the larger the object used to create the sounds, the deeper the pitch, and the smaller the object, the higher the pitch will be.  We used chimes, glasses filled with different amounts of water, and sound fork and spoon, and rubber bands stretched over a board to create different pitches.

Multiplication Task

We completed a task today where students reviewed creating arrays and had to create a multiplication word problem to go with it.  Students were grouped by using playing cards just so we could divide up into some different groups than we normally work in.  If they chose the factors of 4 x 5 that would mean four rows of five and it would equal a product of 20. 

Our First Webquest

We started working on our first webquest today using the laptops and the students in Studio 214 did an amazing job completing their task!  Some students finished up their quest and began writing their own fairytale with a theme and we will publish them using www.storybird.com.  That is a cool website that allows students to write their own story and add illustrations and print it as a book!

Themes in Fairytales Webquest

Here is the link to begin your webquest on finding the themes in popular fairytales.  Remember to work with your partner and stay on task to accomplish your goal!

http://www-ma.beth.k12.pa.us/jhoke/jhwebquest/jhwebquest.htm

Watercycle

Here is a great explanation from Bill Nye of how the water cycle works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hehXEYkDq_Y&feature=related

We have also learned a cool song with hand motions that will help us remember the water cycle and what happens at each stage.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw275056JtA

Here is a look at the students in Studio 214 singing the song.  We had a couple of helpers from another class in fourth grade leading the song for us!

Inertia Experiment

This little car and playdough man was a great example of inertia.  We discussed Newton's Laws of Motion and tied in seatbelt safety with this lesson also.  I'm sad to say, the playdough man did not make it through the experiment. :(

Lunch in the CCES Courtyard

Last week, students who had lunch passes ate with me in the CCES Courtyard.  It was such a beautiful day!  Students earn the lunch passes by earning Panther Behavior Sticks.  We cash them in at the end of each month for passes: homework, computer, iPod, etc. 

Friction Experiement

This was an experiment we did this week to understand what friction is and how it slows objects down.  We related it to car tires and discussed what happens when tires do not have much tread left on them and how dangerous it is to drive with them on a wet roadway.

Fall Break has Arrived!

It has gotten so busy at school these past few days, I have not had a chance to post on our blog!  Whew- this week has just flown by having our hands-on day, fourth grade field trip, and open house.  Now that we are on fall break, I can catch up a little bit.  We also bought a house in Burkesville, so we are going to be really busy over fall break!  Everyone be safe and get lots of rest and I will see you soon back in Studio 214!