Week 25

 Weekly Greetings!

Before I get into the highlights from last week, I would like to make sure you are aware of a few things. First, I am still trying to see what interest there is for the fundraising offer given to us to take money at the door of the up-coming basketball tournament. Please get back to me by Tuesday so that I know if we can cover the hours listed in the letter I sent home last week. Secondly, all the teachers were given a letter requesting help for the local food bank. It would be a great way to give back to the community, and the class that contributes the most donated food will win a root beer float party. The last thing on my list this letter is to let you know of the school-wide Spelling Bee on Wednesday at 9:00am in the library. We will have a class competition on Monday to find our top three spellers to compete on that day.

Now for some news about last week! The week was pretty busy with the regular amount of content to cover as the class moves through the expectations for fourth grade, but in addition they also had MAP testing Tuesday and Wednesday. So, when the 100th day of school arrived on Friday it was a perfect way to celebrate all their hard work and effort so far this year. Even through a 100th day celebration is usually a lower elementary activity, I promised the class 100 minutes of fun to acknowledge how much they have grown academically since starting school.

We started the morning finishing their daily journals that have 100 things that they have written about themselves. They were excited to see how much their writing has improved from the beginning of the year. Next, they were given some special glasses to hunt down 100 Chocolate Kisses hidden in the room. They found them really fast! Even though we had a small 100 number chart, and counted what was found, we still misses 10 that I found later. We started to make the connection that some were still in the class during snack when the Kisses were added into the other treats brought in by the students. 

The class made predictions about whether the 100 Chocolate Kisses or 100 Peanut M&Ms would weight more. They were split on which one was heaviest, but the Kisses won out. Next, the class was divided into two groups to make a 100-object train. They marked every length of 10 to help keep count.

 Graphing is always fun, so we made a graph using choices that they might want a 100 of. It was a tie between 100 cookies and 100 frogs.

Breaking up into pairs of two, the students took turns tossing a penny 100 times and recording if it fell on heads or tails.  Surprisingly it was pretty much equal, so we figured there was a 50/50 chance of getting one or the other in a coin toss.

 Those activities took up about 70 minutes before snack and recess, so because of the short day on Fridays we had the last 30 minutes of and instant challenge activity before lunch. Two groups were made and given the challenge to build a tower in a large square with toilet paper rolls. Each group was given fifty rolls out of the 100 I had collected. One person was to guard the tower, while the others tried to knock down the tower of opposing group using paper wads.  They all worked well together and had an active finale to our celebration.

As for this week, we will be starting a new unit in reading and finishing the Science unit on the universe so that we can start work on the upcoming Science Fair. On Friday, the class will also have an opportunity to experience a "Reality Sandbox" being set out from UAF.  If I understand correctly, it has something to do with topographic mapping. 

Lastly, even though I am still waiting for lasts months book order to arrive (it should be here any day), I am sending home the February list and would like it back by Thursday February 16.

I hope you have an awesome week!

Kind Regards,

Julie Brown