January News
Written by the Students in 4Sp
Community Corner
In community corner we are doing a lot of fun things. One of the things that we are doing is Star of the Week. In Star of the Week we are doing powerpoints about ourselves. We get chosen from a name picker and if it’s your name then you get to do the powerpoint. Also we did New Year goals. A New Year goal/resolution is when you make a goal for the new year to have a better or happier life. We did that by making New Year letters. We also made two charts that say what our class is good at or what we need to work on.
We are also making Love Boxes. Love Boxes are for Kids Who Care. Kids Who Care is a club in the morning that does things for kids in need. Love Boxes have personal hygiene products and small toys. Maybe even a book. You put all of your things in a box and decorate it. Then we give it to the Bethany House.
-Mia&Makenzie
Little Red Schoolhouse
This month we went to the Little Red Schoolhouse. We are learning about pioneer life. We did math on a old slate.Some peoples favorite time was marbles, like mine! We read poems and wrote in cursive with a quill feather.We also matched items to their names on tags.
After that, we came back to our seats and talked about the history of the pioneers and the Indians. We even learned that if you didn’t listen to the teacher you would have harsh consequences.
Indian Hill got its name by pioneers killing an Indian and always saying ‘’Go pick berries on the Indian’s Hill’’ and the name just stuck and the area just became Indian Hill!
At the end of our trip back in time, our teacher gave us apples!
-Ella R. and Dylan K.
Reading
Theme
Are class this year has been working on theme. Theme is what the story is mainly about. It is the lesson that is learned in the story. Like if i read a story like the three little pigs, the theme of the story would be "be nice to others". That would be the theme because the wolf was unkind and he was harmed in the end.
Next week we are doing commercials that have strong themes. I have a really good one. I am really excited that we are working together on this project.
Theme Song :
Our class we did theme songs and they had to have a message or a meaning. A theme song is a song that tells something like emotions some songs we did were Sponge Bob Ripped His Pants and Roar and much much more.
Figurative Language:
In class we studied different types of figurative language. We talked about similes, metaphors, idioms, adages, and proverbs. Similes are when you compare two things using like or as. One example is, “I am as patient as a fisherman . Idioms are sayings like it is raining buckets it is not real raining buckets it is just raining really hard. Adages and proverbs are figures of speech that tell us about life. Adages are sayings like, “Like father like son.” Proverbs give us advice, like “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
-Trent & Brian
Book Club
Book club is all about getting a group that likes your book and you would read one chapter a day. Then you would do a 6 second summary. A 6 second summary is when you try to write only about the main details like the climax or problem.
We did theme projects too. A theme project is when you try to find out themes of books such as persistence pays off. In Danger Along The Ohio there was a boy named Amos and his sister Clara and the youngest is Jonathan. One day their ship was attacked by a group of Indians and they could not find their dad their mom sadly had already past away. Then they knew wherever their dad would be they all knew that he would be at Marietta. So they traveled on a long hard journey. Throughout this journey Amos pulled an Indian out of the river and they got captured but that never stopped them from reaching their dad.
We hoped you learned something new like we do every day.
-Marina & Rylee
Math
Rates
We have learned a lot in math this year. In math, we are working on rates. We are watching a video called ratey the math cat. It is awesome! Ratey!
Number talks
The teacher writes a problem on the board and try to solve it in as many ways as we can. We learned the friendly numbers, partial products, and break it down strategies this month.
Patterns
Learning about patterns was fun. We did a lot of different things with patterns. We worked on patterns with numbers and shapes in them.
Problem solving
Cubes helped us a lot in problem solving. We also did I charts to help us. It was a fun way to problem solve. We did a variety of things to problem solve.
Math has been fun this year!
-Carson and Joseph
Writing
We have been working on Danger journals it is when we read a book and do responses it is when we write about our chapters when we finish one. The book is about a family of kids who lost their dad in a Indian attack and they live their life in the woods. And what you do is just write about what you read and every thing you found out its a really good book for kids ever older than us! The whole point of danger journals is to study point of view. We took on the perspective of one of the main characters in the book. We re-wrote the story from that character's perspective. We changed the book from 3rd person point of view to first person point of view. We also have book clubs. We had choices to read Weasel, Riding Freedom, Sign of the Beaver, and Trouble River. We do responses and every thing on the books. Its so fun to do book club you can go to the class next door if you got chosen or you can stay in the classroom to do book club.
We have also been working on persuasive pieces. We have watched some persuasive commercials. We identify the persuasive elements in the commercials. We also did comparing and contrasting the commercials. We are working on a project where we find a commercial with persuasive elements in it.
-Frances & CeCe
Spelling
Late in the month of January was awesome! We started spelling for 2014!
We talked about our rules and we watched some videos about them. Like videos from other teachers, one of our rules were the base words were able and ible which ible is for root words and able is for base words. For example the word breakable it follows the rule able rule.so spelling was really fun!
-Sydney & Greta
aka great spellers
Social Studies
In social studies we are studying the history of the United States. One thing that we talk about is the Revolutionary War. What happened in the Revolutionary War? It was when King George the 3rd sent hundreds of troops to destroy the Colonies but when Paul Revere warned the Colonies that the “British were coming”.The news carried through the colonies.
Then hundreds of Patriots were armed for the battle. When they were warned that the British were around the road they hid their weapons in barns and dressed up as farmers. It was a great battle but also a bloody one a lot of Redcoats(British soldiers) were killed or injured.The British told the colonies to put down their weapons two older men stay armed with their weapons . The rest of the men walked away but still those two men stayed put. There was a shot then a raid of shots rang in the city of Boston.One of the two men was killed and one was terribly injured. Then all the Patriots ran into battle they stood behind trees and bushes swarming on the British.
-Reagan & Josh
Specials
This month we have had lots of stuff to do in specials. we were busy!!
Gym
This new month in Gym we had a lot to do. Tarzan was one of the things our class loved! Tarzan is when we swing from rope to rope without touching the knots. If you make it a cross the students will get there picture taken and hung up so everyone can see who made it across. We also did the cargo net, and the peg board. Gym has been really fun this past month!
Music
Our class has been doing Recorder karate. Thats when we get belts for playing specific song on the recorder you can send videos to her on voicemail to get new belts .To put on your recorder lots of us like music!!
Art
In art we have been focusing on famous artists. We have been do lots of things like landscapes and shadows lots and lots of things. We have watched videos about artists. In the month of january we have done A LOT!!!
Spanish
In spanish we were learning about fruits and animals. It was fun!! But we had some tests and also some stories to do. We are working on a "super secret" project.
Tech
We have done lots of cool things in tech recently like before we start we go to a page that has questions on it. We have to answer them in one minute. Whoever finishes the first gets 20 points whoever finishes the second gets 15 points if you finish 3rd you get 5 and if you do not finish in the top four you get nothing. But you can still win if you get all answers right you will get 190 points.
-Noor & Maddie
Contact Mrs. Sprang!
Email: erin.sprang@ih.k12.oh.us
Website: http://4thgradejourney.blogspot.com/
Location: Indian Hill Elementary School, Drake Road, Cincinnati, OH, United States
Phone: (513) 272-4738