estimating lengths

These students are estimating the lengths of various objects in the classroom.

How do historians find out what happened in the past?

When asked this question during our last social studies unit, Dylan answered: "They use primary sources. They use what they find out to find out other things. They pause and they think, 'What is this?' and 'What else could it be?' and then they turn it into a question and answer it."

Piper added, "The way they use primary sources is they listen to stories that are passed down from generation to generation from people who were there or whose ancestors were there. They also use other sources to fit in with the primary sources they have. It's kind of like a puzzle--to fit in all the pieces."

Waseya made a different comparison when she said, "Usually answering one question brings up another question so they have more to uncover. They're like detectives in a way."

Owen pointed out that "they can find out from someone who kept telling their grandchildren who could tell the historians--or who could be the historians." I liked that--recognizing that each of us may be the one passing on stories that become part of history, or we may become the historians ourselves!

Here is Charlie's diorama of a scene from Pearls of Lutra (from the Redwall series).

The dioramas are here!

Visit our classroom to see beautiful and creative dioramas representing our students' favorite scenes in the books they're reading. Here is Shannon Sullivan's diorama of a scene in Abby Takes a Stand.

our first voice thread

Here is the "voice thread" link I mentioned recently. The voice thread includes paintings, photos, and other representations of what happened on the Mayflower and at the 1621 harvest festival (a.k.a. the "First Thanksgiving") narrated by third and fourth graders. Enjoy!

our "First Thanksgiving" voice thread

8 shelves (in a window display), 13 oranges on each shelf

How would you solve 13 x 8? Here are three ways students solved this problem today:

12 x 8 = 96

96 + 8 = 104

13 x 2 = 26

13 x 4 = 52

52 + 52 = 104

10 x 8 = 80

3 x 8 = 24

80 + 24 = 104

Investigating the First Thanksgiving

Last week students answered these three questions as part of a culminating assessment for our "Investigating the First Thanksgiving" unit in social studies: 1) How do historians find out what happened in the past? 2) Choose an event that led up to the 1621 event. Describe the event from the perspective of a Wampanoag and of an English colonist. 3) Why did the Plimoth Plantation web site refer to this event as the "1621 harvest celebration" rather than the "First Thanksgiving?" Students are also finishing a "voice thread" that we will link to this blog shortly!

We need help with a math challenge!

Okay, so the picture is backwards, but here's the deal. This card represents the "24 Game Challenge" discovered by Luke. Use these four numbers (3, 7, 7, 3) to equal 24. You have to use each number exactly once. You can use any/all of the four basic operations. Let us know if you solve it! Thanks!

Fabulous Whale Assembly

We did it! With tremendous support from B.Z., April, and the tech wizards (Marcia and Debbie), our third and fourth grade students presented an array of facts about ten species of whales. The presentation included slides, audio clips (of beluga and humpback whales), and the short video linked below. Check it out!

This is one of our 3rd/4th grade team's beautiful whale bulletin boards. Our class and Ms. Cannon's class will be sharing more whale art (look for a life-size image of a blue whale!) and whale research at a special Wednesday morning assembly on December 2nd. We hope some of you can come!

Writing Project 2010

We've started Writing Project 2010: 20 lines a day for 10 days, each piece scored based on its author's editing prowess. Students are working with editing tools, including a list of 150 high frequency words, a list of "confusable" words, and our Write On Track handbooks. This is my first time doing a unit like this with fourth graders, and it will be interesting to see how such attention to editing affects our writing overall.

Today's topic was "Friends" and students wrote personal narratives, descriptions, and even fictional scenes. I'm looking forward to reading (and scoring) them.

Smartboard response tools

Today Debbie Lee, Matt Goldman, and I attended our second Smartboard training. We learned how to use the Smartboard response "clickers." When in use, this feature allows each student to use a remote "clicker" to enter answers to questions. The data can be shared right away and also stored to analyze later. Matt and Debbie and I talked about potential uses for this new tool, as well as inherent limitations and possible drawbacks. If any of you have experience using these clickers, or similar ones, I'd be interested in knowing more about how they work in different contexts.

quote of the day: historic sources

Yesterday we returned to our study of "the First Thanksgiving." We reviewed what we'd learned from Edward Winslow's letter (a primary source, since he was there). We discussed the importance of gathering more information from other sources. Using the plimoth.org website noted in a previous post, we learned about Wampanoag ways of life across the four seasons. After looking at images and hearing descriptions of traditional Wampanoag activities, Waseya looked up and asked, "But…how do they get all this information?" We recorded her question so that we can return to it, and in this way we can continue to learn about how cultural practices are passed on and how historians work with various sources.

quote of the day: revision

At the end of writing workshop today, Owen said, "I used to think my essay was perfect, but now I'm taking a bunch of pieces out and putting them in different places. Now I'm thinking my essay is getting better and better than before." I smiled and shared this with the class. Many kids said, "Yeah, me too!" I was delighted to see them appreciating the satisfaction of revision.

UNICEF: a look at wants vs. needs

Today we watched a moving video about the work that UNICEF does on behalf of the world's neediest children. We did two related activities, one of which asked partners to work together to list 10 "wants" and 10 "needs." Very interesting conversations ensued. At one desk group, two students tried to decide whether love was a need, or just care. At another, two kids decided to place trust on their list of needs. One boy asserted that education was a need, but really good schools fell into the "want" category. Eric summarized the difference by stating that you can't live without the items on your "needs" list, while the items on your "wants" list make your living happier. Perhaps we can revisit this conversation next month as we approach Thanksgiving.

multiplication and division combinations

Two students were discussing what made studying the division combinations easy (they're just like multiplication) and what made them hard (they're like the opposite of multiplication). Austin had the last word when he said this about studying the division combinations: "It's like hanging upside down. You feel all woozy!"

Reading Around Town

Our reading bulletin board is crammed with reading life home projects and with photos of us reading around Amherst on our last field trip. Here are just a few comments from our post-field trip discussion. These comments relate to the readers we saw around us (at cafes, bookstores, and the library) as well as to our own experience reading in these public spaces:

"When we went to Amherst Coffee, there was this man. He was the only person reading just a book in the whole café. There were a million people reading with laptops!"

"I noticed that I never saw a person that was shallow in their reading. They weren’t looking around. They weren’t looking up and chatting at another person. They were looking at their book or laptop."

"I noticed that it was hard to read at the café because it was noisy… It was easy when I got to the library and the bookstore because it was nice and quiet. And I was surrounded by books which gave me the feeling that it was a reading place."

The bookstore was really easy to get into your book, but then because my book was so good I didn’t really look up, but there were so many good books there, it was fun to look up at the books. Usually, you could get distracted by those good books.

We have enjoyed a brief study of probability this week--placing events along a "likelihood line" (as you saw on the homework) as well as assigning numerical values to their probability. Students have engaged in vigorous debate regarding the likelihood of such events as rolling a 1, 2, or 3 on a die, pulling a girls' name out of a container filled with the names of students in our class, and even the return of dinosaurs to Earth!

Thank you to those of you who sent in written accounts, photos, and objects related to last year's ice storm. We had a great discussion about what people would be able to learn from these primary sources, as well as what they would still not know. If you or your child is interested, here is the main website we are using to investigate the "First Thanksgiving" (aka the harvest festival of 1621):

www.plimoth.org/education/olc/index_js2.html

Here is a post from Ms. Cannon, describing the study of whales our class is doing with her and including many excellent websites you might enjoy:

Through read-aloud, discussion, and videos we are learning about the largest animals that have ever lived on this planet. We have been discussing threats to whales and the importance of taking caring of the Earth and its many habitats. Third and fourth graders are recording facts about these amazing mammals in their whale research books. In art, both classes have made ocean collages using black and white nature photos to depict whales swimming in watercolor oceans.

Here are links to the videos we have watched to learn about different whales:

BBC- The Blue Whale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K40D83obI8U

National Geographic- The Blue Whale

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/content/kingdom-of-the-blue-whale-3302/blue-whale-facts/#/compare/length

Humpback whales bubble-net feeding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELca_ZWVJtM&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJvfjiCTvq4

Endless Ocean- Right Whale

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVX84qRrCSA

Orcas Whale Watching

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8kcMXjPiIQ

Fin Whale

http://www.arkive.org/fin-whale/balaenoptera-physalus/facts-and-status.html

http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/26222

Sperm Whale Versus Giant Squid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z2Lfxpi710

American Cetacean Society Fact Sheets

http://www.acsonline.org/factpack/bluewhl.htm