Park Specialists' Newsletter
Fourth Grade Edition - First Trimester
First Trimester Recap
From Park's Art Instructor - Mrs. Ovadje
What’s happening in Mrs. Ovadje’s art room??
This year in art, the students are learning about different kinds of art from “Around the World”. We have created:
Passports
Zentangle + Zendalas
Clay Alebrijes, or mythical animals from Mexico
Primary Pumpkins by mixing 2 primary colors together, and
Fiber Art - Weaving for Native American Heritage Month
Photo: Art Enrichment students making coil pots with clay.
From Park's Librarian - Mrs. Hanneman
New this year: Our Library/Tech Time rotations are a little different this year. Instead of rotating each color cycle, we will be staying with the same schedule for a unit and then switching. For example, two red days of TechTime and then two red days of Library. Or, six blue days of Library followed by six blue days of TechTime. As such, not all second grade students have been in Library instruction for some of these units at the time of this publication. Yet by the end of December, all students will have participated in these lessons.
Learning in the Library:
Fourth graders started the year with learning more about internet safety from the famous Disney characters, Timon and Pumbaa. A new learn they learned is that anything you do on the internet is FOREVER! In addition, students improved their searching skills in the library database, Destiny Quest. Afterwards, students were introduced to the Maud Hart Lovelace Book Nominees for this school year; more information is provided below.
For books, we focused on literacy standards relating to Native Americans through enjoying some stories such as, A Boy Called Slow and The Legend of the Ladyslipper.
Minnesota Student Book Choice Award
Students who have read at least three of the Minnesota Student Book Choice titles will be able to vote for their favorite book at the end of March. The votes from Park Elementary will be tallied and sent into the state headquarters for compilation with all of the other student votes around the state. The student choice book award recipient will be announced on April 25. Encourage your child to participate.
Check out Park’s FREE e-books. This site works on any internet connected device: http://www.tbcjr.com/ (longer books for Grades 3-up) Username: park423. Password: login
http://www.tumblebooks.com/library/ (shorter books for Grades K-5th grade)
Students can listen to books while following along with the text at a variety of levels. Check it out!
Thank you to our PTO for sponsoring access to this great site!
You’re invited to the Park Elementary Book Fair!
When: During Winter Conferences, 2/13 and 2/14. Times TBD
Where: Park Elementary Foyer
From Park's Technology Integration Instructor - Mr. Durheim
The primary focus of TechTime is for students to develop their Computational Thinking skills and apply them to problem solving and coding.
The TechTime/Library rotation has changed a little for the 2019-2020 school year. Instead of rotating between the two classes every color rotation, classes will visit the same class for 5 or 6 color cycles and then rotate for an equivalent number of cycles. That means some classes have met many times and some have only met a few times so far. Please visit the NEW TechTime website to learn more about specific activities, websites, and learning goals. The site is continually updated as we progress through units
UP NEXT: During the next rotation, students will continue learning about coding and participate in the Hour of Code with students around the world.
Keep up with what’s happening at Park by viewing our multimedia Daily Announcements. During the first trimester, fourth- and fifth-grade classes have been taking turns creating our Daily Announcements. All of the videos are available on Park’s website.
Keyboarding
We are in our third year of keyboarding as a part of the specialist rotation schedule. The program is self-paced and students progress at their own speed. Classes meet for 30 minutes every four school days.
We are continuing to use a program called Typing Quest. This program teaches students to type on a computer keyboard and builds their skills so they can more efficiently use a computer. Students began with TypeTastic! games which help students to learn where keys are located on the keyboard and also develop fine-motor mousing skills. Next, students move on to Keyboarding Kickstart, Typing Quest Jr., or Typing Quest.
Some Typing Quest lessons and games are available free to home users at typingquest.com/personal. Many other typing games are available online for extra practice outside of school. You may find several on the Park Elementary “For Students” webpage. DanceMatTyping is a favorite of many students.
From Park's Phy Ed Educators - Mrs. Hahn & Mrs. Juergensen
Mrs. Hahn and Mrs. Juergensen are having a great start to the school year. New to Park, but not new to our district is Mrs. Juergensen. She taught 7 years at West Elementary before moving to Park this year.
A typical day in the Physical Education class begins with a fitness warm-up activity. These activities vary from cardiovascular, muscular strength/endurance, and/or flexibility. The purpose of these activities is to increase the students’ awareness and level of fitness. After the warm-up, students have a lesson that focuses on the skills that will help them to be successful in the games in a unit. The students will then participate in an age – appropriate game using the skill(s) practiced in that lesson.
Units covered first trimester:
*Soccer skills
*Football skills
*Fitness tests
*Table Ball and Gaga Ball
*Volleyball
*Bowling
With the coming of snow and the need for boots, please help your child to remember to bring his/her tennis shoes on phy-ed days.
A big thank you for all your help in making “Help Forky Slam Dunk the Junk” activity a big success! It was great to see how much trash students picked up at Park Elementary and in our community. Thank you to all that sent in pictures as well. The bulletin board is looking awesome!
Tips for Raising Heart-Healthy, Active Children:
The American Heart Association recommends kids 6-17 years old should get at least 60 minutes per day of moderate- to vigorous- intensity of physical activity a day.
Go to the grocery store together. Learn more about reading nutrition labels and make it fun for your child. Staples in your kitchen should be 100 percent whole wheat or grains, low-fat dairy products, poultry, fish and nuts.
When your child gets home from school, give him healthy snack options such as whole grain crackers and string cheese, hummus dip and vegetables, Greek yogurt with apple slices, nuts and dried fruit.
From Park's Music Teachers - Mrs. Hoeft & Ms. Newton
This first trimester in 4th grade music we have focused on our singing voice and matching pitch. We reviewed the solfege syllables Do Re Mi So La, and High Do and Low So. We reviewed Fa in the song Great Big Building and practiced singing and playing using the Boomwacker instruments (plastic tubes of different lengths that play different pitches). We have also learned about harmony by singing rounds and ostinatos. The Seasons Song, Make New Friends, On Halloween, and America, America were fun songs to develop these singing skills. In addition to America, America, we enjoyed singing other patriotic songs including This Land Is Your Land, America (My Country Tis of Thee), Star Spangled Banner, America the Beautiful and Fifty Nifty United States. For rhythm work, students reviewed the notes learned in third grade and added a new rhythm called sixteenth notes. The students practiced the new rhythm using the song Chicken on the Fence Post, and body percussion.
The highlight of our trimester has been learning to play the recorder. The students started by learning to read and play the notes B, A, and G. Everyone practiced each note using various rhythmic patterns, then played the song Hot Cross Buns using correct posture, hand position, articulation and soft blowing.
Besides recorder, instrumental work this trimester included playing various percussion instruments and large drums. The students especially enjoyed adding many percussion instruments to the song Skeleton Stomp and performing for their teacher. Students also enjoyed making up their own melodies on the Orff instruments for the song You’re So Wise. We have a full set of Orff instruments, including xylophones, metallophones and glockenspiels, in each room so every child can participate as we play together. Other songs that used the Orff instruments included Make New Friends and Land of the Silver Birch, a Native American song from Canada.From Park's STEM Specialist - Mrs. McDowell
Throughout all of the STEM projects students are continually following the Engineering Design Process to ask questions, plan, create, make observations and improve their designs along the way. Check out what your child/student has been up to these last couple of months in STEM!
Clay Boats! 4th grade STEM students spent the first month of school creating a clay boat that could not only float, but hold the most pennies in it as well. In order to be more successful in their mission, they explored whether items sank or floated when placed in water. They also discussed the terms buoyancy and density to explain what was happening to each item. They came to the conclusion that an item is less dense than water, and floats, if the water being displaced has less mass than the object itself (also known as Archimedes Principle.) Confusing I know!!! However, they were able to use this information to determine that if they thinned out their clay by rolling it out, their boat would become less dense than the water, have more surface area and be able to float. The thinner they made their boat, the less dense it was, the better it floated and the more money it could hold!
Flood Barriers! Moving forward into October students began their next project. They were asked to build a barrier around a paper doghouse that would stop or slow down the flow of water. This project brought on a whole new “real-life” challenge…they had to stick to a budget of $10.00 when selecting what items they wanted to purchase to build this barrier. Before building, they were allowed to test some of the supplies by seeing how absorbent they were. They first recorded, then entered their absorbency data into a spreadsheet. As a class they analyzed the data to figure out which items were the most absorbent, thus providing them with a better idea of what they wanted to purchase. We had some pretty good looking barriers and had both successes and fails. Regardless, all students were great sports about the challenge and had amazing discussions of what worked, why it worked and what didn’t. They were also able to relate this entire activity to how communities respond to real-life flooding situations.Park Elementary School
Email: dan.olberg@isd423.org
Website: isd423.org/park-elementary/
Location: 100 Glen Street Southwest, Hutchinson, MN, United States
Phone: (320) 587-2837
Twitter: @parkelem