Meet Another Class Pet- Uncle Si

          Meet Uncle Si- our red Beta fish!  He is at my house for now but will be in our classroom when school starts!  I love his tail and that he is red and matches our room!

First Class Pet- A Dwarf Frog

          We have a new class pet, one of thirty-two!  Ok- we will not be naming thirty of them because we have an ant farm this year, which I'm pumped about!  I've never had an ant farm before! 

This is a dwarf frog all the way from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.  His name is Papa Phil and he lives in his own aquatic environment and he swims all day!  I will post a picture of our other class pet later- Uncle Si.  He is a fish! 

Readworks Resources

          Here is another great resource shared by a fourth grade team member- I have the best team members!  This is a free resource and has great ideas and things you can add into your lesson plans for reading.

www.readworks.org

Grammar Website

          Here is a great website for grammar practice that was passed on to me from a dear colleague!  We will be using this throughout the year as practice and formative assessments.

http://www.englishforeveryone.org/Topics/Punctuation.htm

Author Feature!

          Studio 214 is featured on an author's website and I am BEYOND excited!  We read "Pop: The Invention of Bubble Gum" by Meghan McCarthy, which is a beautiful non-fiction text about how bubble gum was invented.  We spent a few days using the book, completing different tasks on the text and on the last day, we created the writing piece and had a bubble gum blowing contest!  Check out the link below to see what we completed and to check out other wonderful books by Meghan McCarthy!

http://meghan-mccarthy.com/creativityintheclassroom.html


Here is the link for her website homepage: http://meghan-mccarthy.com/homepage.htm



HAPPY READING!

Science Academy

          This summer I had the opportunity to attend a science academy provided by GRREC in Bowling Green.  We had some of the greatest classes that focused on the new science standards that have been released this year and will be assessed next year.  Below you will see some of the tasks we completed that focused on engineering.  We were given materials, but no plans.  We had to experiment and discover to see what worked best and what did not work at all.  It was a trial and error process and we learned so much through that process!  I can't wait to complete these tasks in Studio 214!

We had to create a tower with the materials you see (and only had a certain amount of each) that could hole one of those science books you see on the back counter.  They were heavy!  If our tower could hold the book, you succeeded, but if it did not, your tower failed.

You notice that the "Pinwheel Princesses" won with 247- that was the fourth grade teacher from CCES!  We were so excited!  We had to use juice carton, paper, straws, and popsicle sticks to create a windmill that could pick up the most weights.  The picture below was our final product.

Service Learning Project- Ronald McDonald House

         Last week, we delivered 16 large boxes of coke tabs to McDonald's in Columbia!  This service project is led by the fourth grade students and teachers at CCES, but the entire school participates by collecting and donating the tabs.  The Ronald McDonald House is a non-profit organization that helps families with sick children by giving them an inexpensive place to stay and free meals.  Our son was hospitalized at Kosair's when he was born prematurely and my husband and I stayed there until he was ready to come home.  After that experience, I wanted to give back to them, because of what they do for families everywhere and for how they made us feel during our stay there.  We will continue this project this year as well, so start collecting your soft drink tabs and bring them to the second floor at CCES!
 

Welcome Back to Studio 214!

          After taking some time off from the blog this summer, I am getting it started again for the new 2013-2014 school year!  I want to welcome all the parents, students, and fellow teachers who check our blog on a regular basis.  We are now almost to 30,000 visits since I started the blog a couple years ago.  Continue checking throughout the school year for pictures of what we are doing in class, "mathcasts" which will be new this year (I'm so excited about it too), student blog reports, and for teaching strategies and ideas we will use in Studio 214!  I'm ready to get the school year started!