Lakes & Rivers of the Middle West

Human Body Brainpop Videos

These links will take you to the BrainPop Jr. videos that you need to watch for Science class.  (NOTE: You'll need to log in to get to the videos.  Mr. Nelson will tell you the username and password.)

Digestive System

Skeletal System (Bones)

Circulatory System (Heart)

Respiratory System (Lungs)

Muscular System

Eagles4Kids Website: Live Video of Eagle Nest!

Click here: Eagles4Kids

This from their website:
"We are a classroom of third and fourth graders from Blair, Wisconsin.  We are so excited for Lucy and Larry to have eggs this year. Last year we had 3 squirrels living in the bottom half of the nest but two were eaten by Lucy and Larry.  The one squirrel that survived we named Lucky.  Lucky has a new girlfriend we named Buddy.  We hope you enjoy our webpage." 

Iditarod 2012

We're taking a break from our Reading series and our Daily 5 checklists, and we're spending some time learning about the annual Iditarod dogsled race that takes place every year at this time up in Alaska.  Let's start with a few links:

• Iditarod Website
• Scholastic "Iditarod: Race Across Alaska"
• Current Musher Standings
• Listen to the "Iditarod Song"
• Listen to "I Did, I Did Iditarod"
• Quiz Your Noodle: The Iditarod 
• Serum Run Game 
• Husky Racers

Blobz Guide to Electric Curcuits

Today in Science we investigated electrical circuits using a website called "Blobz Guide to electrical Circuits".  Try it out for yourself!


Blobz Guide to Electrical Circuits

Author William Durbin Visits Oaklawn

Yesterday, Oaklawn 4th and 5th graders were delighted with a visit from award-winning author William Durbin.  Mr. Durbin entertained us with a slide show of pictures that he has taken and gathered while doing research for his books.  He has written a dozen or so books in his career.  The students were fascinated by his stories of lumberjacks and fur traders and stories of war.  To learn more about William Durbin and his books, visit the author's website:


William Durbin's Website

Stone Fox Quiz

Quizzes by Quibblo.com | SnapApp Quiz Apps

Triangles

Now that we have estimating and measuring angles somewhat mastered, we're learning about triangles.

Click here to discover everything 4th graders need to know about triangles!

Click here to practice making different types of triangles!

Click here for Interactive Triangles.  Practice making all types of triangles!

Click here to watch a BrainPop video on different types of triangles! (login required)

Click here to quiz yourself on the different types of triangles!

Measuring Angles

Here's a fun site that we used to help us learn how to measure angles using a protractor:

Math Playground: Measuring Angles 

Play Alien Angles

Control the Roboidz 

Banana Hunt

Recorders in Music Class

After our next Music class on Monday, the 4th graders are supposed to bring their recorders home and spend some time practicing all that they have been learning so far.  Mr. Lutz assures me that they are all very capable and talented young musicians, and he would really appreciate any extra practice that his pupils can get.  In the meantime, here's a short video showing you what they can do!

US States and Capitals

We have begun learning about the 50 states.  We will go through them all, one region at a time.  Our first region is the Southwest region, which has only four states.  (Ask your fourth grader if they know them!) For each region that we cover, this is what we expect the kids to take away from it:

• Names of the states
• Capital cities
• Important bodies of water (lakes, rivers, oceans, etc.)
• Important land features (Rocky Mountains, Grand Canyon, etc.)
• Important historical events (The Gold Rush, The Civil War, etc.)
• Important landmarks (The Alamo, The Gateway Arch, National Parks, etc.)

This may seem like a lot, but it's really more of just an exposure to our country.  If there was to be one main focus, it would be on the states and the capital cities.  To help with that, here are some links to some fun US States and Capitals games:

• US Map Test - You need to drag the names of the US states to their correct location on the map before you run out of time.  Regrettably, this game leaves out Alaska and Hawaii.  Can you believe that?!?!
• US Map Puzzle - This one has three different versions of gameplay: (1) States With Outlines, (2) States Without Outlines, and (3) Capitals.  It's fun to watch how students improve their knowledge over time.  How fast can you put the puzzles together?
• USA Games - An excellent assortment of games and tutorials designed to teach and test your knowledge of the United States.  Even has lakes and rivers too!

Thanksgiving Means...

We did another one of those "word cloud" activities today.  The kids wrote blog posts.  They wrote about Thanksgiving, and what it means to them.  The turkey-shaped word cloud is shown below.  Recall that the bigger the font of the word, the more times it was used in the blog posts.  It's a nice way to get a collective view of what fourth graders think about Thanksgiving.

Cow Sightings!

Carly's cow overlooking downtown Port

land, OR

Some of the reports on our Cows on the Loose have started to come in.  We have photographic evidence that our cows have been seen all across the country...from Washington D.C. all the way to Portland, OR.  Check it out:

Cows on the Loose!

Weekend Reporter on Wordle

Once again this week, we did our Weekend Reporters on our KidBlogs. I really like how much more some of the 4th graders write when we do them this way! Also, it's fun to read some of the comments that they leave on their classmate's blogs. As I mentioned last week, the blogs are private and you can't read them without logging in. Students are able to log in at home, and you can read them that way.

In the mean time, I took the text from ALL of this week's Weekend Reporters and imported it into a Wordle word cloud. For those unfamiliar, Wordle generates a word cloud from text, giving more prominence to more frequently occurring words.  Here's what we came up with:

Do you see anything that you might recognize?

The Cows Have Been Set Loose!

Most of the cows went out via US Mail earlier this week.  Here's a map showing the destinations of the cows that have been set loose:

WKCE Testing is Done!

4th Graders finishing up the WKCE testing!

As I write this post, the students in room 148 are finishing up with four long, grueling days of WCKE testing! Overall, I have to say that the class has done pretty well with this. I don't ever get to look at the tests, so I'm not sure how well they did. I don't even really know what they were tested on. All I know is that most of the fourth graders felt pretty confident that they scored well on most of the tests. We're just glad that it's over! Now we can get back to Spelling tests and Multiplication facts and stories in our big purple Reading books! (I think we're going to have to re-learn a few of the rules and expectations too!)

November Book Project

Since we had so much fun with the October Book Project, we have decided to do another one in November.  Our genre for this month is Historical Fiction.  These books are based on real historical events, but in which the characters are not real, and the minor events may not be realistic. Hopefully, your fourth grader has already chosen their book, and has a good start on reading it!

Once the kids are done reading their books, they will do the following "Bag-It" project:

November Book Project

The project is due on Friday, December 2nd.  We will present our projects to the rest of the class.

Does your fourth grader want to read MORE Historical Fiction?  Here are the search results for Historical Fiction books in our Oaklawn school library:

Historical Fiction Search Results

Cows on the Loose!

The 4th graders at Oaklawn Elementary are participating in a project called "Cows on the Loose!"  Each student has decorated a paper cow cut-out, and created a "travel journal" to go with it.  The cows will be mailed out from school to a friend or relative of each fourth grader.  It could be someone who lives in another part of the state, or in another part of the country, or even another part of the world.  Hopefully, the friend or relative receiving the cow will take a photo of the cow near or amidst an important place or landmark in their area.  Then, that person can e-mail the photo back to our classroom at the following address: cowsontheloose2@msd.k12.wi.us.  Also, we hope that the person will take a few moments to write out an entry in the cow's travel journal. Don't worry, there is a complete set of instructions that travel with the cows!

After the friend or relative is done with the cow, we ask that they send it on to someone else, in perhaps a different geographic location.  In this way we will accumulate pictures and information about all kinds of different places!

Clearly, this project only works if the cows keep moving, so any help you can give toward that end would be appreciated.

Click here for a copy of the letter that is mailed out with each cow (it's stapled securely into the Travel Journal that will accompany the cows.)

You will be able to track each cow's travels and adventures right here:

Cows on the Loose!

Halloween Pictures

Well...I'm not much of a photographer, and my camera isn't the greatest in the world, but if you missed the festivities this afternoon, here are some pictures.  Thanks again to all of the parents who donated food for our pre-costume parade celebration!

Enjoy the slide show! (Give it a moment to load!)

Halloween Games and Activities

• FrankenBrain 
• Halloween Pairs Game (Concentration)
• Halloween Hangman
• Write a Scary Story
• Monster Band
• "Dry Bones" Connected
• Halloween Word Scramble
• Make a Jigsaw Puzzle