Class of 2009
We had an exceptional year! We made tremendous growth in our reading & writing: 90 % of us were at or above goal in reading & 65% were at or above goal in writing! We stretched our thinking in math & inquiry as well. We enjoyed all of the projects we did, too! Take a peek below at some of what we did in 2009...
Rock On!
In the meantime, listen to our rocks & minerals songs: My Rock & The Rock, Crystal Rap, Rocks, How Rocks Form, Rock Song, The Mountain, Rocks
Listen to our rocks & minerals advertisements: Rocks Inside, Rocks That Rock, Titanium Rocks, Seth & Aimee's Stone Factory, Copper Igneous,
Copper
Rock Shopping Club
Minerals Everywhere
Fluoride For Sale
Love That Dog
To kick off our question: "How Do YOU Eat a Poem?" we dived into Sharon Creech's poetic novel Love That Dog. While reading the book, we fell in love with the different styles of poems presented in the book, as well as Jack's "voice". We were crushed to find out why the blue car blue car was so important. But, the ending made our misery worth while!
To the left are a few of our literary essays on this evoking book!
While diving into our Poetry unit, we published a number of poems. You can read &/or listen to a few of them by clicking on the links below.
Love Poem I Have a Dream My Best Friend Megan My Dog My Dog Not My Dog Faith Comet in the Night All Alone
Ecosystems & Adaptations
We were fully immersed in a study of ecosystems & adaptations. During Inquiry Workshop we explored what an ecosystem is, adaptations are, & how plants & animals adapt to survive. During Reader's / Writer's Workshop we read about ecosystems, plants, & animals so that we could create an informational video for others to learn from.
Along the way, we created items to be included in our videos. We performed songs & poems, created a project board with tabs, & plant diagrams & costumes that focused on the species' adaptation(s).
American Desert
Arctic Tundra
Rain Forest
Coral Reef
Savannah Grasslands
Ravenous Readers & Awesome Authors
We have been working hard during Reader's / Writer's Workshop, & all of that work has been paying off. As we looked at our assessment results we noticed who much we are improving in reading & writing! As a treat, we took a break to make some candy with our master chocolatiers Mr. & Mrs. Crand. Take a peek to the right to see how we relaxed.
Sink or Float?
What properties make an object sink or float? We teamed up with Mrs. Schwartz's class to test a variety of objects. We made a T-Chart to show which objects sank & floated. Afterwards we shared our results and thinking about WHY the objects may sink or float. A common theory was because the object was heavier than the water.
Culture Fair
Why do people move? When people move how do they change the way they live? How do people change the place they live in? Take a peek at our exhibits from our culture fair!
Poetry Workshop with Ms. Holly
In November of 2008 Ms. Holly came in to our classroom to do Poetry Workshop with us. She shared a variety of poems with us, & then she showed us how we could publish our poems. Some of us made booklets while others created a pod cast or photo story! To the right are the photo stories that Madysen & Aimee created. Below are the pod casts that Rihana, Megan & Alicia created.
What is Family?
What is Nature?
Animals
My Town
What is a community? Who are the people who make up a community? What places are important to a community? How do you find people & places in a community? We took a map of our town & added all of the things that make East Windsor a community. Some of us did PowerPoints, others did a poster, & still some did a comic book.
Click here to watch the 2 Photo Stories that we used to help us learn about communities.
Constitution Day
What do the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, & Bill of Rights have to do with our classroom? Check out we discovered after our Independence Inquirers WebQuest.
Our thinking AFTER the WebQuest:
The "founding fathers" wanted to be free from England. The Constitution states our protected freedoms. The Bill of Rights tell us what our rights are.
These documents help us today because...
We do not have to pay taxes to England for things that we want. England can not "boss us around" anymore, we are kept safe. Our rights are protected. We can say what we want. We can own guns. People can not come into our home uninvited. We get a trial if we are accused of a crime.
We also watched 2 School House Rocks! videos to help us understand the Constitution. Click here to check out Fireworks & The Preamble.
Just Right Books
We spent time at the beginning of the year learning how to pick books that are "just right" for us. Once we could do it independently, we created a video explaining to others how to pick a JUST RIGHT book.
Open House
In September we had Open House. Our parents came in & we showed them around our classroom. They got to see how our classroom is organized & some of the work we had done so far. At the end of the night there was a basket of goodies for us to take home!!!