Week 11

 Weekly Greetings!

The field trip to Fort Greely to go swimming had to be postponed last week, as a part needed to operate something in the pool was broken. The pool is scheduled to be reopened on November 7th, so I have set the date for Thursday the 10th. Hopefully, there will not be any more problems. I will talk more with you all at Parent/Teacher conferences on the 7th and have permission slips ready that week. After we get through all the Halloween activities this Monday, I will call you all to schedule times for the conferences coming up. We will officially be starting our 2nd quarter this Monday!

October is "Fire Safety Month", and we were fortunate to have a visit from some of our local fire fighters last Tuesday. They went to every class to remind students of the important safety and survival skills needed in case they are faced with a home fire. The students listened intently and had some really good questions.

The next day in the afternoon, the class had another art session with Shauna Lee. How fortunate the school is to have such a talented and trained artist who is willing to volunteer to teach.  After a lesson on using acrylic paints, the class started a new project and began the background.

In Science, we have continued t o explore states of matter. Last week the students used solids and liquid to discover how much air, or gas, was in the objects that allowed them to float. Using a Venn diagram, each group sorted out which object floated, sank, or first floated and later sank.

This will be the last week of the novel unit on Because of Winn-Dixie. Some days, we have read  chapters together or in pairs, and other days they have read independently while I circulate and listen. They have been finding comfortable spots in the class to just curl up and enjoy reading. While reading, the class has been filling out graphic organizers and answering questions to help with the final review.

With Halloween coming, we investigated a pumpkin on Friday. The activity began with the question "What do you know about pumpkins?" Then we went into a moving and visualization activity where they acted out growing from a seed to a pumpkin. Linked together in a vine, they imagined ripening. After I pretended to harvest them all, they rolled over to a good spot for a short read aloud book called The Run Away Pumpkin. We discussed the rhyme and rhythm of the story in addition to some unfamiliar vocabulary words. I shared some fun pumpkin facts, which also tied into aspects of our Science experiments from the day before.  After measuring the circumference,  it was then time to cut open the pumpkin and look over the five parts and seed structure. Once it was opened, the class pulled the seeds out, cleaned them, and counted how many. We found a total of 235 seeds in our pumpkin. The final step was to toast the seeds for our class party on Monday. We will also make a Jack-o-Lantern that day as a group activity for Halloween.

I will have more pictures next week from the Halloween activities that will start our week off.

NO HOMEWORK ON HALLOWEEN!

Enjoy your week!

Kind Regards,

Julie Brown

Week 10

 Weekly Greetings!

Before I recap some highlights from our past week, there are a couple important things I need to inform you about this week.

First, the pool at Fort Greely should be opening on this Monday so we are going to celebrate the end of our first quarter together by taking a field trip there on Thursday. Please return the permission slip attached to the weekly parent letter. Your child will need their winter gear for traveling, a swimsuit, and towel. We will leave as soon as the students finish breakfast, and will return sometime around 5:30pm to 6:00pm. Please leave me a phone number on the permission slip, so that I can call you with a more accurate time to pick your child up when we get close to Tok. We will take a bag lunch and also have pizza after swimming. You can send additional snacks if you think your child will need more than that for the day trip. There will not be any homework that night.

Halloween will be in a week. It is my understanding that the students can bring costumes, but they are not to wear hats, masks, or any accessories that will distract them from learning. We will have a normal morning, and then a school parade starting at 2:30pm. Class parties will begin when the parade is over. Then that evening, there will be the Trick or Treat Street and carnival at the school for Tok and  the local communities. Please fill out and return the party food request that will be at the end of the parent letter this week.

Now on with a few highlights from our short week...All the drums went home last week and the students were so proud of their work. We took a class picture of them all with the additional 16-sided class drum we will display all year.

In addition to the regular classroom curriculum covered each week, the students enjoy a number of enrichment classes. On Tuesday after they have Library, they take a Computer class and are learning to keyboard from Mrs. Hack. They also have a structured P.E. class three days a week with Mr. Cronk.

On Wednesday, we participated in another AK Teach activity with 13 other schools from Alaska and the Lower 48 states. Scientists in Action connect students to scientists in the field via the Internet, and are a live and inter-active experience. Through this activity, we were able to travel to a “Mogollon” (Moh-gee-yohn) site in New Mexico with Dr. Steve Nash of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and Octavius Seowtewa of the Zuni Cultural Resources Assessment Team as our guides. The people archaeologists call Mogollon lived in mountainous regions bordering Arizona and New Mexico from AD 300 to about AD 1300. In the harsh but fertile environment, they hunted deer and other animals, grew corn and other crops, and lived in pit houses before switching to above-ground structures. At the site, there were numerous rock paintings that are believed to tell the origin story of the ancient culture.  We will have another AK Teach experience in November.

Have a great week!

Kind Regards,

Julie Brown

Week 9

 Weekly Greetings!

What an incredible week the 4th grade had while attending school last week! Starting the week, we had a rather normal schedule in Reading and Math. In Science, the class continued to learn about Matter by looking at properties of solids and liquids. Working together in small groups, they sorted solid objects by color, shape, and texture.

 The next day they then explored properties of two liquids based on density recording similarities and differences.

Wednesday afternoon the class traveled to Tanacross to run in the last Cross Country meet of this year.

 One of our students was the first place girl in her age group.

 There was even a neck-to-neck finish as a tie with another student from our class.

 Everyone gave their all in the race and finished in good time.

There were awards after with the top 3 girl and boy finishers. The students even got cake to celebrate before we headed back to Tok.

 In Art the class has been fortunate to work on clay projects, and when we returned they were able to paint their creations in preparation for another firing in the kiln.

Also on Wednesday, the school wide culture week started. Our class displayed the drums they made earlier and I plan to send them home with the students this week.

Every morning there were stories and special activities for the students to learn from. The first day, they all made necklaces.

 The next day the students learned about the different traditional potlatches in preparation for that evening's feast.

That afternoon, the class made a cranberry dessert to share at the potlatch with the cranberries we picked a couple of weeks ago.

I forgot my camera at that evenings potlatch, but there was so much food and a great turnout from the community. After the food was cleaned up, there was Native dancing. The next morning, the students got to do more Native dancing and it looks like they really enjoyed participating.

This week we only have three days of school, as there will be teacher in-servicing taking place on Thursday and Friday. We will be completing a reading unit this week also, and the Spelling test will be Wednesday on the words covered these last two week.

With the snow on Sunday, it looks like winter is finally arriving!

Have a great week!

Kind Regards,

Julie Brown

Week 8

Weekly Greetings!

Before I recap some highlights from last week, I want to make sure I cover some details about this week. First, I am sending home a permission slip to take the class to the final Cross Country Track meet at Tanacross on Wednesday. It is the district championship, and some in  the class would like an opportunity to compete.

In addition, the school wide "Culture Week" will be starting on Wednesday with some special events. Not only will the students participate in activities daily through Friday, but there will be evening events I hope you all can attend. On Wednesday there will be an Athabascan Fiddling Presentation at 5:00pm. Then Thursday night at 5:00pm, there will be a community Potlatch and Native dancing. Finally on Friday afternoon at 1:00pm in the gym, there will be the closing with presentations from Michelle Anderson and Normal Carlo, with a video and song to follow. Please join us for these activities!

We had the final poster completion for our "All About Me" wall in our class. Even though the posters took far longer to complete than I ever expected, the students have really enjoyed hearing from the student presenting and I think it has helped us all know each other better. When I can get to it, the posters will go out in the hall for all to see.

MAP testing was a big part of last week, and I will be pleased to share the results with you at Parent/Teacher conferences in a few weeks. If you would like to see them before then, feel free to let me know and we can set up a time to discuss them.

After sitting in front of a computer for a large part of two days, the class really needed to learn by moving. In Math, we worked with multiplication facts by writing them on paper plates used like Frisbees. The group had a lot of fun chasing after the plates to music, and getting the facts written before the music stopped.

In Science, we started a new unit to study Matter. After reading about the "States of Matter", the students created a poster with the three forms. Using magazines, they sought out pictures representing the properties of liquids, solids, and gases that make up matter.

In closing, please look for your child's completed work and graded tests that go home with them every Friday. I have been finding packets that were handed out, and then left at school. Looking through the packet will help you see some of the concepts we covered that week, and how your child did on any written assessments that were given.

I hope to see many of you at the cultural events, and that you have an enjoyable week.

Kind Regards,

Julie Brown

Week 7

Weekly Greetings!

What an incredible week we had with Alan and Sally from Lime Village sharing cultural knowledge with us! The week started off with a video created for the Native Heritage Museum, that embraced the strength and survival skills of the Athabascan people. It was very well done. Then the class began making octagon drums. There was a good amount of Math integrated into the lesson, and every day the students had another step to complete their project. We will display them for the school wide cultural week during the second week of October.

The class also learned how to make birch baskets, and the different uses that people have for them both in the present and past.

In addition, the group learned how to make a survival lamp using common materials.

In-between some of the other activities, we even got to make a 16 sided drum for the class to keep.

One of the activities was to create a boat out of foil and see how many nails the boat could float. Each student established a hypothesis to see whether a high-sided boat or low-sided boat would float more nails. It turned out that a low-sided boat with a flat bottom could distribute more nail weight.

With the beautiful fall afternoons, we decided to go out and gather low bush cranberries. In just a short time, the class had gathered a gallon of berries to use in the up coming school potlatch during the October culture week.

When we got back, Alan demonstrated to way to separate leaves from the berries using a fan. He said people used to go up on a windy hill and let the leaves blow away to clean the berries.

On their last day with us, Sally worked with the girls to show them how to make a hat while Alan took the boys out for some water Science activities.

Using their thumbs to start the suction, the boys could see that once there was flow in the tube line it would flow even when holding the tube up high. Using the pipeline going over the mountains was the principle behind the lesson. Again, the students were making hypotheses and testing them.

On Thursday, we also connected with the AK Teach program that allowed us to be participants in the  Fossil of Laramidia dig in Utah. This was an on-line live event through the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. The class was connected with other classrooms throughout Alaska and California, while they listened to and asked questions of paleontologist Dr. Joe Sertich. The class asked some excellent questions, and we will be connecting with AK Teach again throughout the school year.  

This week, the 4th grade will be having MAP testing most of the morning on Tuesday and Wednesday. The information from the tests will help guide instruction and address any weak areas we need to work on through the next few months. Please make an effort to have your child at school and on time those days.

Have a wonderful week!

Kind Regards,

Julie Brown